Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I am super excited to announce that we now have a formal
partnership with the Prospect Wizard. And when I say
wizard, I mean wizard. Obviously you have a website.
This allows you to convert your website traffic visitors
directly into leads. It's not just another chatbot and
it's not AI but it allows a visitor to call, text or leave a
(00:22):
voicemail immediately. Goes to you, your sales team or anyone else in the
club instantly. MIT shows a study that if you contact
the league within 10 minutes, chance of them converting goes up nine
times. That of the average. We got the Atlanta clubs
on it. Vita Fitness, Gold's Gym, Mountainside
City Fitness, Philly, College Park. Become one
(00:44):
of the next Halo companies to deploy the Wizard.
It's easy to use. Go to the prospectwizard.com
get a free 30 day trial. Talk to my boy Dave Gallen. He will get
you all set up and let the leads flow based on the
Wizard. Go get him.
This is people on Halo Talks nyc. I have the pleasure of bringing
(01:07):
our only taekwondo champion and bio
medical engineer to Halo talks. In over 600
episodes, we have not had someone with these types of
attributes. So Marco Benitez, welcome to your
first Halo Talks. Well, thanks, thanks so much. Very excited
to be here, man. So really, really appreciate it.
(01:28):
Awesome. So for our audience here, Marco started up a company called
Rook R O. Okay. So if you want to start
out and just tell us, you know, where this name came from because I, I
play a little bit of chess so I know I got a rook or a
castle and you know, tell us how you, you came up
with this and why you decided that that four letter word was where we're headed.
(01:50):
Yeah, well that's, that's a really good question because there's a lot of people who
ask me the same thing. And everyone relates everything with Chase,
but no, in fact it's with the around the crows. So we
were thinking about crawls and when they are flying together,
there's a group that work together and they, it's, they are
one of the smartest birds in the earth. So and
(02:12):
that's why we, we call it Rook because we are a group of
birds, you know, flying together and every single time everyone will
take their leadership in different type of areas. So that's why.
And everything is connected between each other and they don't know why or how,
but everything is connected between. And that's exactly what we do. We
connect data. Love it, love it. So give
(02:34):
us your background. You know, I already gave the abridged, you
know, top two out of 10 or what have you. But what you've learned
where you saw the frustration. Maybe also give us an analogy
because I think there are several good ones in other industries where you need
this kind of middleware. You need this group in between to kind of direct
traffic and direct data. Yeah, well, being a
(02:56):
middleware it's a lovely part because you can bring and be very
specialized in different type of things with data. For example,
my background, I'm definitely a taekwondo guy
my whole life. Exercise sports, that's my thing. I
love sports. I love because give you a lot of, you know,
discipline, perseverance. There is a lot of things, very good things over there.
(03:19):
But secondly also work in big pharma. Big pharma in
clinical trials. So clinical trials. I learned a lot around
the middleware. The clinical trial is something that apparently
looks like from the beginning you have to create a protocol. You need to create
a molecule and then find different, you know, find to
solve different type of problems with different diseases. But in the meantime
(03:41):
in the middle there's a lot of vendors working towards this
to achieve that specific thing. Like you know, generate all
the data from the data, you know, from the, from real world
evidence to identify the problem. So there is a lot a different type of
thing. So my learnings during these whole years is like
if you special specialize in specific thing around data
(04:03):
and you can create things and even more important, when you have a lot of
information or data, you can improve people's lives. That's why we start
to build rook because it's very important now. Data is the new
oil so we can help people to being better.
Gotcha. And then you know, when you started this up, were you
currently at a different job and kind of moonlighting this? How
(04:25):
quickly did you put your team together and then you said you raised some VC
money, you know, so to give us a little bit of info on that.
Yeah, I, I can start through. Well, when I was
in the big pharma I was over there like I don't know, probably 12
years in the big pharma. And again, different typ of learnings. When you
work with an enterprise, you identify that it's, it's. You
(04:47):
have to be very structured. That's the first and important thing. Even though
that they are very long and old companies, they give
you a very good structure of how to build a company. That's something
that they give it to me. Secondly, also as I said before, when you have
a lot of information, you can create things. But even more important, when you have
a Lot of data. You can improve people's lives. So that's why we start
(05:10):
to build Rook, because we were okay. Health industry,
they are. There is a new wave of gadgets. There is
a new wave of wearables, these commercial wearables. In fact, some
of them start to receive FDA clearance. That's
impressive. Now these wearables are becoming medical
devices. So we identified something that potentially could
(05:32):
be very interesting. The problem out there is, like a lot of industries,
what we made a lot of research over there. A lot of
industries want to pull the data from these devices, these wearable devices. However,
they don't know how to pull all these data. They need to
integrate all the wearables that are outside and make sense of all
this data. And we saw the problem since the beginning because
(05:55):
before we create Rook, we have a platform for the fitness
industry, like My Zone for Latin America and
these type of things. So we started to integrate all these wearables in
our own platform. And we saw them. We saw the people, the big
problem over there. Once we extract the data and once we start to
make sense of all this information, we saw the big problem over there. So that's
(06:17):
why we started to do this API for other. So you actually
had. So you actually had a company that was doing the equivalent of my own
with the body traps, heart rate monitors, and
it kind of morphed it into like, hey, why don't we just not sell our
own into studios or locations? Let's actually
scale this and kind of move up to the. Not
(06:39):
the food chain, but the. The data chain to say, let's just do this as
agnostic. So how do companies like this, you know, get paid? I'll
give you an example. Like, I use Zell or Zelli, right? For.
For transfers. They're obviously just connecting two different banks, and there
seems to be no transaction fee. There's a company called Plaid.
Plaid, which basically is like, doing that as well. So
(07:01):
how does that business model work for, like, the delay people here and myself?
Thank you very much. Even though I went to Harvard Business School, I don't fucking
know this. You know, how work and how do you kind of fit yourself in
on something meaningful? Yeah, there's, like, different. Yeah,
Plat. That's the perfect example. But because normally when we talk
with different investors, they are like, okay, you are the platform, the wearables data,
(07:22):
and the medical devices data. That's close. When I read. No,
you know, you nailed it, Joe. I didn't know. I didn't know. You nail
it. So you so that's cool. So
yeah, it's mainly around some companies charge per
API call what we charge per active user. It doesn't matter matter that
you send one time data or 1 million
(07:45):
of time this information which only charge per active
user. So it's very simple, it's per use and you,
if you want you, we can tier you in different buckets.
Where. Who'S actually paying for the
active user? Who, where's like what, what,
what, what constitutes me as an active user? And then is it the
(08:07):
device that makes me the active user? Is my data going to somewhere
else which makes me the active user who owns me? Yeah, well it's the
payer. So that depends a little bit because we work
mainly with a fitness industry but also we work with sports and also
with insurance companies. So in, in the case of the insurance companies,
the payer, I will say that at the end of the day everyone, the
(08:30):
end user is always, always the one who pays everything. Right? So
that's, that's something too. Every single time that we go to one
specific service, we are the ones who pay for that service. And
on top of different type of services that the same you know, thing
you are, you are buying. So but for not for us
we are B2B meaning that we charge to the
(08:52):
carriers or we charge it to the insuretech companies like I don't
know betterfly or these type of companies that are
using these data for a specific thing, they are the ones who are
paying us. Or for example in the fitness industry and
fitness app or the gym, if the gym has
an application, they integrate my API which is only a
(09:15):
code and they give access to more than 300 wearables
so they can pull the data from the end users and make sense of all
this information, make engagement or different type of things. And every time
someone upgrades a device, does that require a different API
on the back end, on your end or coding or what have you?
Well that's exactly the problem that we are taking out from
(09:38):
each company. So instead of. Because if they
doesn't have a rook, they have to integrate all the wearables, they need
to integrate the Apple Watch, the Polar, the Garmin, the Suunto, the.
Huawei and upgrades every time. Yeah, exactly. Maintain those
integrations and then make sense of all this data because they need to
standardize, normalize, harmonize, take out duplicity. Well, we take
(10:00):
out all these problems, take out that problem
and they only have to integrate my API which is just a code. In
my code we have already more than 300 wearables. And
we make sense of all these data and we deliver clean and very
structured, standardized, normalized, very easy to use the information.
(10:24):
This is Pete Moore. I want to let you in on a little secret. There's
this company called Promotion Vault. And what they do is they give. Out rewards
from retailers that allow you to incentivize your
members without having to do zero down and one month free
or giving away shakes or giving away T shirts. What you want to
do is build a rewards program that lasts, that people value,
(10:47):
and that doesn't discount your own products and services. So here's the
deal. There's something called Rewards Vault. The Rewards Vault is going
to allow a member to set up their own profile. They are going
to answer questions. You are going to get those answers. You're going to be able
to target those members and you're going to reward them inside your
club, inside your spa, and outside of the club and outside
(11:09):
of the spa to get them to become loyal, to get them to pay
their monthly dues, and to be rewarded properly
for the actions. A lot of companies are cutting back on rewards. You shouldn't
be. Promotion Vaults. Your answer, Trust me, this is real.
I've got two questions. First question is there are 300 wearables
(11:32):
out there. There might be a new one that comes out, you know, every week.
Who knows who it's backing, what country it's from. Is there a threshold where
you, like, look like, I'm not taking on a new wearable and
actually devote time to that API and understand your system
until it gets to X number of users. I'm asking you this one because
we got a lot of entrepreneurs on the call here. Listen in to the podcast,
(11:54):
and I feel like it's hard for entrepreneurs to say no. And you, you
always want to just say, like, oh, there's a new device, let's just add it
on. Like, we'll get to 305, we'll get to 3 10, and you realize, like,
return on time. You know, you could have said no to those things and say,
hey, once that thing gets some critical mass, then we'll add them on. That was
my question. 1. That's, that's a really good question. And, and this is
something that at the very beginning, we, we struggle, right, because you
(12:17):
are focused on what you see outside. And if you don't have a lot of
feedback from the client or potential client that depend on the,
that you are, it's like, it's an, it's like you start to do a
lot of Things and doesn't nothing works. So, so to
answer your question is like we have to ask to our
clients, that's the important thing. And first of all, the market
(12:40):
share, who are the ones who are in the market share the most
want, you know, is the Apple Watch, maybe the Fitbit. We make all these research
and we start with something. Then when we have
a client or a potential client, we start to ask, okay, what's
the wor, which wearable do you need and why?
And that's when we start to create the things for our clients.
(13:03):
And then what we identify is that the same problem and the same
wearables that those are, those ones are the ones that
need the other companies when you are in the same
industry because we are working with insurance companies. So they have
already a specific target of wearables because of the
fda, because of the gdpr, you know, information
(13:25):
outside because of different type of things they already know know which
kind of wearables they need. So those ones are the ones that we have
already got it. Okay, my second question is and, and just as
a, an update for our audience and for you, this, this year we started
doing every Wednesday we do a two minute drill
from our Halo Academy. So I teach people on here's what revenue is, here's
(13:47):
ebitda, here's recording revenue, here's what your balance sheet looks
like, here's how you do, you know, member attrition, retention, all that kind of stuff.
What I'd like to do with you right now is I want to do like
a cut, a two minute drill that will be that we do separately. And
then it'll be like, hey, you want to listen to the whole podcast coming here?
So let's do one on like the benefit of a
(14:08):
B2B SAS company, why those companies are valued
the way they are and why the recurring revenue is so
sticky that to take you out and replace you with someone else
is like a completely unnecessary financial
decision and actually a much bigger nuisance that you would ever take that
you're saving money on us. So I'm gonna start it. I've got Marco on here.
(14:30):
We're doing our two minute drill segment. So Marco is with Rook.
Start up a company that's a B2B SAS player which basically
sits as middleware in the middle of all the wearables and all the
data providers and, and actually getting
that into their one of 300 app of choice or onto their fitness
app, whichever they use. So Marco, when you started this company and thought about the
(14:52):
business model, talk the benefits of how this business model works
over time. Yeah, well, first of all it's because the pain that we are
taking out, that's the first and important thing. Do we understood why they
need this type of thing? What are the pains that we are taking out? Secondly
is working with enterprises is the best way because it's take
time. It takes a lot of time to close some deals and
(15:15):
but once they are closed, you will receive a lot
of feedback from them and you will be in the heart of the company.
Because we as an API solution, we live
inside the platform, inside the app. So
for them it's a no brainer to still work with us and make a partnership
and sometimes invest in the company. So we have some
(15:37):
companies that already invest in Rook because we are not anymore like
a vendor. We are like a part of the complete
ecosystem. So it's great to work with them. Yeah. And then
on the SaaS side, software as a service just
for our listeners here. When you think about that business model on a monthly
basis, Marco's getting a dollar amount from each one of his clients.
(15:59):
It's such a de minimis part of the entire financial
expense structure on a per user basis that there will really be
never any way for someone to come in and say hey, I can do this
API better than you. Right. Given the interchange costs. And
also when you think about it from an investor standpoint, when Rook
lands a deal, they land that deal as long as that company stays in business
(16:21):
and hopefully continues to grow. That is a a accelerating
recurring revenue membership model through SaaS fees
that allows these companies to trade at 5 to 10 times revenue
historically, because it's hard to pull out, you don't really need
to pull out that expense. And it's very, very unlikely that someone
who's on either side of your client base and your user base
(16:44):
are going to build the middleware because they're conflicted and they're not
actually neutral party and. It'S predictable at the end of the
day. So when you are talking with investors and also for you, you want
to hire people, everything that can be predictable. When you have
some clients, that's perfect. That's the type of things that
investors love. And if you're an entrepreneur and you do a B2B
(17:05):
software play and it works like Rook does, then
you can sleep at night instead of not sleeping anymore. So welcome to the
Halo sector on that. Thanks Marco. Back to our originally
started podcast. So Marco, thanks for the 2 minute drill. From a
standpoint of, you know, where you take this company.
Do you bring on more salespeople? Do you go international? Do you
(17:28):
go and advertise at trade shows? Like how do you get this infiltrated? We're just
on a call someone, one of the guys where they said like ABC
Fitness a 38 year overnight success,
right? Or another guy just told me it takes eight years to build something that
people like really want in scale. So how do you think about that?
You know, Taekwondo is obviously, you know, you can win or lose and it, you
(17:49):
know, play several matches in a day. So how do you think about the long
game? Yeah, I think everything is a long game. There is not no
easy, easy roads. It's a ways like at the end of the year is like
the Taekwondo for example. If you want to. I am black belt for them.
But to become a black belt is something that takes time. It's
not something that happened from one day to another. It took you to
(18:12):
learn a lot of stuff. You have to work every single day. You have
to, you know, go to the tournaments, prove yourself. There's
too many things that need to happen during the whole, you know,
it took me at least 15 years to become
a black belt and be a teacher and be someone
in the industry. So it's not something that happened from one
(18:35):
day to another. It's the same thing with companies is there is like a
one day turn on and turn off new companies, unicorns.
It looks like that, but it's not even short. You know,
it's like the, the egg and the chicken. There's a good book over
there like the good for to great. It's.
It tells you like hey, the chicken. It
(18:57):
doesn't appear from one day to another. It take a lot of time. You have
to be the perfect temperature, have to be the perfect environment to
be to do you know that the chicken born.
So it's. It's something that you know, everything is
allowed around the long term. So on our
side today we are this company technology company
(19:18):
that helps to be a pipe. Like we strike the data, we
structure the data and we deliver that data. But at the end of the day
we want to become a data science company. A data science
company is because we have a lot of data. We can help them to improve
people's life. We can help to do business, you know,
business smart business
(19:41):
decisions with all this information. So it's like
a helping them to do something with the data to
insights, do predictions. Those are the type of things that we
are in. That's our ambition.
This is Pete Moore. Here's the Last tip for you of. The podcast,
(20:01):
we are partnered up with a company called higher dose
higherdose.com they are the leader in
workout recovery products. Infrared technology,
LED light masks, neck enhancers, and
other products such as PEMF mats and sauna
blankets. If you have not gotten on the workout
(20:22):
recovery train yet, your time and your stop
is now. You got to get these products in there before these workout
recovery and spas end up saturating your market.
Having your members walk out of the club and going into one of their locations
for 200 bucks per month where they're paying 39 to
you. Let's become an expert in workout recovery. If
(20:44):
we are already an authority in workouts, Higher dose,
check it out. There's a wholesale code and we look.
Forward to helping you augment your products. And services
to meet the demands of your members. And hey, let's get people
happy, healthy and sweating. And the recovery should be
just as. Good as the workout.
(21:08):
So. So one of the things. Well, first off, we got to get you a
copy of our book, which is called Time to Win Again, which is basically 52
takeaways from Team sports to ensure your business success. We'll, we'll drop ship
a couple of those for you, for your team guys. But we basically say it's
good to great meets Where's Waldo? In like a bullet point, like
cartoon character format. So we did that during COVID You'll love it. We'll get a
(21:29):
book out. Second thing that I wanted to, to,
to, to reference here with you on the,
on the business model as it relates to, like, where this is going.
I use this term. Somebody asked me at a tech conference, like, what do you
think of AI? And I said to like all these operators. And I kind
of leaned in. So I'll just lean in because I got room in here. I'll
(21:50):
be like, you can't have artificial intelligence
until you have intelligence. Exactly. Okay. And I step back and
I'm like, just think about that. You got to collect all this data. And then
when you say, hey, I'm going to provide this information, you
know, in this industry, I find that you might not have, you might have to
do more than just give them the information. You might have to tell what it
(22:10):
means and then what to do with it. So how do you feel about kind
of not only just being in the middle, but saying like, I'm coming at you
right now and I'm actually going to tell you what the ship means. I'm going
to tell you how to monetize it or optimize it or you know.
Yeah, I mean that's again a really good
question because I know everyone has a label say it's like a
(22:31):
bumper sticker. It's like everyone has a bumper sticker about the
AI. That's something that impressed me a lot. And
it's, it's. I know, I know there is a hype over there and I think
that will change everything. AI is changing
everything, I believe so the problem is that if
you don't know exactly what problem you are solving,
(22:54):
who cares? The AI. Exactly, exactly.
It doesn't make sense. So I, I, I with you. Definitely
100 with you. Yeah. So you know, in closing
here, can you give us, you know, who
the right clients are to that, that you're looking for right now, either
what trade shows you're going to be at or how to reach you guys and,
(23:15):
and so on and so forth? Yeah,
well, first of all we have different type of clients, but mainly the ones
who are looking and we can help with A lot of value is
in the fitness industry. Definitely everyone who wants to extract
the data but to engage with the end users to try to understand
a little bit more around them, we are a perfect fit for
(23:38):
them because we can give you a lot of insights today because we started with
the fitness but rather now we are moving towards, you know,
with the insurance companies. Insurance companies, they are doing
very interesting things and they are moving to the preventive side.
Preventive more than reactive. So CPT
codes are starting to move on the preventive side.
(24:00):
So everyone who works with insurance companies and want
to integrate this type of technology or working with an
insuretech because normally the carriers are not the ones who are,
you know, the, the state farms, they, they are not building the technology
but they are working with insuretechs. The insurtechs are
the ones who are building the technology. So with them that's where
(24:23):
we can find a lot of clients over there in the digital health space too.
So yeah, definitely the ones who once ap wearables
in their own technology. We are the ones and we can help because
it's very consultative. It's not something that, you know, we are not
selling a product, we are selling consultation. Yeah,
so, so Marco's company again is Rook. They
(24:46):
are a flock of the most badass crows you're ever going to meet. Let them
help you move your data, get results and then provide
the AI as the special sauce. So Marco, look forward to meeting you in
person and we're going to rip the two minute drill also, so thank you helping
us unravel what a B2B SaaS business is and why it's
so interesting and predictable and exciting
(25:09):
once you kind of nail the actual business model and provide
the results. All right, man. Good to meet you. Awesome. Good to meet you, too.