Two years ago, Miami tech entrepreneur Rodolfo Saccoman walked into his mother-in-law’s garden in Miami and found a tray with rows of neatly arranged elbow macaronis.
When he asked Yezmin Leon about it, she explained it was a resourceful recipe born out of scarcity in Cuba decades ago. With snack products scarce, she and other families in Cuba would boil pasta, dry it in the sun for two to three days, flash-fry it in oil, and toss it with salt. Then she fried up a batch for Saccoman.
“I eat this thing, and I’m like, these things are absolutely crunchy, flavorful, and non-sticky,’” recalls Saccoman, a veteran of the Miami startup ecosystem for two decades, in an interview with Refresh Miami. In his mind, two things immediately clicked: cheap inputs with pasta, oil and salt and an easy process. “Then I’m thinking this is America’s comfort food – macaroni,” he says.
With the snacks unavailable commercially, Saccoman knew he had his next venture. Today, that’s Coditos, a brand capturing Miami’s cultural heritage while creating a new snack category alongside chips and pretzels: “crunchy macaronis.”
Saccoman partnered with Leon, whom he affectionately calls La Reina del Codito [both are pictured above] on the venture, and he self-funded the launch about 18 months ago. With Leon pushing the product onto store shelves, Coditos is now sold in more than 215 retail locations spanning the 85 miles from Palm Beach to Homestead, including Sedano’s Supermarkets, Presidente Supermarkets, and Navarro pharmacies (now owned by CVS), as well as gas stations and neighborhood markets.
“In all of the chains, we’re selling 45 bags per store per week,” says Saccoman, adding that the industry average for emerging brands is five to eight bags. “And that is all with zero marketing dollars spent.”
To expand, Coditos recently closed a $750,000 pre-seed funding round that included the New York CPG venture capital fund Blue Collective along with University of Miami Canes Angel Network, Azoic Ventures and others.
Running Coditos like a tech startup, Saccoman engineered the brand identity, standardized the recipes, and designed the brand’s mascot – “Codito,” a joyful character representing the best of Miami – using AI tools like ChatGPT, Claude and Flux. And by analyzing historical CPG playbooks through AI models, Saccoman avoided classic rookie mistakes.
Instead of launching five or six flavors, which complicates manufacturing and cash flow, he launched only two SKUs: the Traditional Cuban recipe and a “Better-For-You” variant made with avocado oil. He also rejected third-party distributors early on, keeping distribution internal from their Doral warehouse to maintain direct relationships with store managers and to harvest “ground truth” data. “We have systems where I can see velocity per store, per day, per demographic, per chain … and that changes the game,” Saccoman says. “It becomes a superpower.”
For Coditos, the goal for this year is to scale from 215 stores to 700 across South Florida and perhaps one or two other Florida markets and also targeting channels like corporate offices, schools and universities, and cruise lines. Before expanding nationally, he wants to saturate the market – could Coditos become the official snack of University of Miami or Florida International University?
Coditos is Saccoman’s first foray into CPG, marking a stark contrast to the longtime tech founder’s past ventures in digital billboards (AdMobilize), decentralized finance (CryptoLeague) and others. Yet, he also has several tech ideas in development, because this is the age for what he calls “the compound founder.”
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Saccoman points to platforms like Lovable, where software MVPs that used to take months and thousands of dollars to build can now be deployed in hours. This compressed timeline allows him to seamlessly run his five-person team at Coditos while concurrently developing other companies.
“I believe AI, software leverage, distribution access, modern tooling, and network effects are fundamentally changing entrepreneurship itself, allowing founders to increasingly compound operational knowledge, systems, audiences, relationships, and execution capabilities across multiple asymmetric opportunities and industries,” Saccoman says.
One of Saccoman’s new tech ventures is WildlifeOS, an AI-driven environmental intelligence platform he is building with Noel Elman, a former principal investigator at MIT and founder of Gear Jump Technologies. Positioned as a “Palantir for wildlife,” the startup aims to create a physical-world system of record to manage wildlife risk, he says.
Operating with a three-person team, WildlifeOS’s first product is CrocAlarm, an advanced infrastructure play designed to protect users and owners of lakes, ponds, golf courses, and amusement parks across Florida from alligator and crocodile threats, Saccoman says. “Imagine people enjoying all these bodies of water without fear. We remove that fear,” says Saccoman. And for an HOA or an amusement park, a single alligator attack can have massive financial impacts regarding property value, legal insurance claims, and brand damage.
The system uses solar-powered buoys equipped with sub-surface sonar technology and AI that constantly scans the water. A top-side LED siren alerts the public using a simple traffic-light system: green for clear, yellow for caution, and red for confirmed danger. The company’s technical direction was recently validated by its acceptance into the prestigious NVIDIA Inception program for AI startups, and it has begun fundraising discussions. Coming soon: SharkAlarm.
For Saccoman, balancing a disruptive deep-tech platform with a rapidly growing snack brand feels like a full-circle moment. His father was once the president of Warner-Lambert’s international divisions, where he oversaw brands like Schick shaving, Parke-Davis pharmaceuticals, Chiclets, bubble gum. “I grew up going to factories with him … I would see my father do activations at stores,” Saccoman recalls. “Now, my father is an advisor to Coditos. It’s entirely full circle.”
Saccoman, too, is passing business and entrepreneurial exposure down to his own children, Liam and Natalia. The oldest, 8-year-old Liam, has watched the entire lifecycle of Coditos unfold – from his grandmother frying pasta in the kitchen, to designing the packaging via AI, to discovering the final product on a shelf at Sedano’s. “In his mind that seed will always be there,” Saccoman says.
Saccoman views his current ventures as a commitment to his home state and city. “What excites me most is that these worlds increasingly complement one another: Consumer brands, AI, operational systems, physical-world infrastructure, venture creation, and community ecosystems,” Saccoman says. “I genuinely believe Miami may finally be entering its most important entrepreneurial chapter yet – evolving from a city known primarily for attracting founders into one capable of incubating enduring companies, meaningful brands, and globally relevant innovation platforms.”
Pictured above: Coditos co-founders Rodolfo Saccoman and Yezmin Leon.
To date, Coditos is available in two flavors — the traditional recipe and a “healthier for you” version made with avocado oil.
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