S12 E21: Marco Benitez, ROOK

Code Story: Insights from Startup Tech Leaders

Noah Labhart - Startup Founder & CTO

News, Business, Careers, Entrepreneurship, Tech News, Technology

5.0 • 217 Ratings

🗓️ 2 June 2026

⏱️ 32 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Marco Benitez lives in Naples, Florida. In the past he lived in Miami, but found Naples much more family friendly. He is originally from Mexico, along with many of his family members and businesses. Outside of tech, he is married with 2 kids. As a family, they love to go outside, be outdoors and visit the great beaches around Florida. In addition, Marco is a black belt in Taekwondo, and also does Jiu Jitsu. Marco and his team was building a wearable in the past, centered around fitness. They figured out that the real value was around feeding data into these types of wearables. When they were approached by a company who was excited about this type of solution, they started to accelerate. This is the creation story of ROOK. Our Sponsors: * Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App’s bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures. * Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.ai Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Transcript

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0:00.0	This episode is brought to you by The Built. A new podcast from the guys behind Cincera,
0:04.7	Michael Sullivan and Ian Myers. They built their company by figuring out clever solutions to a few
0:09.8	important ad tech problems in their industry. And that's exactly what this show is about.
0:15.2	Mike and Ian interview some of the smartest tech minds in the biz to hear about how they
0:19.8	identified opportunities, solve their hardest challenges, and grew their businesses in the biz to hear about how they identified opportunities, solve their
0:21.8	hardest challenges, and grew their businesses in the process. Listen to The Build with Michael
0:27.4	Sullivan, wherever you get your podcasts. We were already ingesting that information from different devices.
0:39.8	So our MVP was our own app, was our own product that we had before.
0:45.5	That one we started testing with other potential clients that were looking for this data.
0:51.5	So the MVP was something that we previous built. And by the way, it took a lot
0:57.5	of time because we were on during the pandemics. And during the pandemics, we saw the mess
1:02.8	with the data because we started to integrate the Apple Watch, the polar, Garmin, and we saw
1:08.9	how difficult was to integrate every single device.
1:13.3	I am Marco Benitez. I am the co-founder and CEO of Rook.
1:20.8	This is Code Story. A podcast bringing you interviews with tech visionaries.
1:26.6	Six months moonlighting. There's nothing on the backhand. Who share what it takes to change in industry. I don't exactly know what to do next. She took many goes to get right. Who built the teams that have their back. The company is its people. The teams help each other achieve more. Most proud of our team. Keeping scalability top of mind. Yes, we've been fighting it as we grow. Total waste of time. The stories you don't read in the headlines. It's not an easy thing to achieve, my view. Took off the shelf and dusted it off and tried it again. To ride the ups and downs of the startup life. You need to really want it.
2:01.8	It's not just about technology.
2:03.3	All this and more on Code Story.
2:07.2	Your host, Noah Labhart.
2:09.1	And today, how Marco Benitez is solving wearable integration problems by making your health data available via ABI.
2:21.0	Today's episode is brought to you by dot-tech domains, and this one hits close to home.
2:25.2	Back in 2016, I was building my startup and went hunting for that perfect.com and found next to nothing.
	...

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