July 24, 2024 • 34 mins
Sean Brace & Evan Davis sit down with Megan Lanham, Founder & CEO of Rithmm.
A company that specializes in predictive models for sports gambling.
Key Topics discussed:
A company that specializes in predictive models for sports gambling.
Key Topics discussed:
- Early Career and Inspiration
- Motivation behind creating Rithmm
- Industry Insights
- Advice for Entrepreneurs
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
You are listening to Behind the Vegue, a podcast mini series that takes you
beyond the bets and strategies and moreinto the business of the sports betting industry.
Now Here are your hosts, SeanBrace and Evan Davis. That's right
Behind the Veig Episode three here showBrace Evan Davis with you here and hopefully
(00:21):
you've enjoyed our first two installments ofBehind the Vig. Ev and I am
excited about our next guest coming uphere for episode three on Behind the Veg
Meghan Lanham, founder and CEO ofRhythm Rhythm dot com. And it's a
model where they are predicting all thingson sports gambling from NFL college football,
(00:42):
NBA college basketball, and more.Really excited a number of reasons. Of
course, we're gonna dive deep intothe sports gambling world. But number two,
Meghan is our first female founder onBehind the Veg. Yeah, I'm
really excited for two things. Oneis just to chat with her because she's
got such a fastating background and youknow she can talk more about it.
(01:03):
But she was a she was anathlete, and she was a coach.
Yes, and then she you know, helped found a company that had nothing
to do with this and went toyou know, business school. I mean,
she's got she's just got an unbelievablebackground and uh and our really really
interesting journey to get to where sheis today. So really excited to talk
(01:23):
about that, and and equally excitedto talk about Rhythm, but the company
and the product which is really cool. You know, we talk a ton
about like AI these days, andand Rhythm has sort of taken that and
and distilled it down so that peoplethat maybe like me, were history majors
in college can still figure out howto use some of these some of these
(01:45):
advanced math approaches toward their uh sportsbetting experience and and and use them.
And and I think they're really bringingthat to the masses, which is really
exciting. So excited to to chatwith her and excited to learn more about
what Rhythm is and where it's going. All right, let's do it.
We bring in Meghan Lanham, whois the founder and CEO of Rhythm,
(02:07):
and you can find Meghan on socialsthat Megan underscore lan Haam that's l A
n H A M. And ofcourse Rhythm, which we just talked a
ton about, that's at double mR I t h m M. That's
rhythm dot com. Meaghan, greatto have you. How are we doing
today, Hey Sean, Hey Evan. I'm doing wonderful. It is a
(02:29):
great to say. Morning Meaghan.I want to open up and as always,
get a little background about you andone of our favorite questions to ask,
because we all assume that if you'rein this space, you are a
sports fan. I we have yetto interview someone that has yet to be
a sports fan. I know they'reout there. Something tells me you might
be different here. So, Megan, I want to ask you your favorite
(02:52):
childhood sports memory, if you wantin mind, I would love that.
This is great. Favorite childhood memorywould be We're gonna go back guys,
Spud Webb, Dominique Wilkins slam dunkConso wow, No, like best childhood
(03:14):
memory even went as far as Imean, I was dub using VHS because
that's what was around, taping itand then dubbing it over with audio of
Ben Halen Jim I got all.I went, that's like eighties Texas.
This is odd. This is sogood. You know, were you an
(03:36):
Atlanta Hawks fan or just so I'mlike a five to five point guard on
a good day. So and soobviously spud Webb I was. I was
like growing up, I'm in Illinois'min the cornfields. I love Bulls and
I love the Lakers. We canget into that later of how I became
(03:57):
a Laker fan, but you gotI love the small if you're a small
point guard, you love small pointguards. And then just to see him
elevate, it was like, thisguy is walking on air. Like.
So if you those of you thatare young and don't know spudweb like,
get on YouTube, hit it,go watch that. It's unbelievable. It
really was. Yeah, it reallywas. And just the funny part of
(04:19):
of van Halen jump over it.Now you got to follow up and do
you still have those video cassettes,the VHS tapes that are still in existence,
because I would love to see that. I have looked at my parents'
house and I cannot flan them.That might have been my best work of
all time. Great, excellent,Well you're doing a bang up job over
(04:44):
there at Rhythm, and I knowwe got some other things that we want
to discuss with you and and yougetting to where we're at right now with
this venture. But let's let's goahead and get into Rhythm here. Megan
and Rhythm is the AI sports bettingapp for player props and game predictions.
Backed by AI predictive models. Rhythmhelps you make smarter and faster betting decisions
(05:05):
across NFL college football, NBA collegebasketball, golf, and w n B
A. Does that sound about rightfor you as far as straight off of
the Rhythm dot com website, that'sperfect. So let me let me follow
up because this is why I wantedto jump right into it. There are
people out there that might be,uh, a little not fearful of AI,
(05:29):
but man, all right, AIlike a little like what's going on
there? Really is? Is?Is AI able to predict and steer us
in the right paths when it comesto the sports gaming? You know how
people are in this industry. Ideal with them daily. And now we're
suggesting that AI is a way thatwe can go ahead and have success in
the whether whatever market it may be, whatever sport there. How did you
(05:54):
come about that? How? Imean it's got to be complex, correct,
Oh, it's incredibly complex. Yeah, And that was like the genesis
algorithms, Like how can we takesomething so complex and bring it to a
wreck better, a casual better,or even a sharp better that doesn't have
time or money to you know,continue to evolving their their betting models.
(06:15):
But then, how do we shrinksomething complex down so the user can have
access to something like that without havingto have the knowledge of how to build
a predictive model. Predicted modeling withoutgetting too nerdy is a branch of AI.
Most people right now think of AIin terms of languages and chat gypt,
which is fine. This is math. This is quants that are incredibly
(06:39):
their geniuses, mathematical wizards that aretaking information, building an algorithm, having
the machine learn, and then spittingout, hey, here at tonight's games
that exist. We build a model. Here's where the model says, there's
an advantage, there's an edge.This is what this is where you should
bet. We're the main Where wewanted to make it a little but more
(07:00):
cooler than that, is like,what if the user could actually put in
a couple of their own instincts,or if they had knowledge, if they
played the sport, or just simplylike I've watched a lot of football,
I know what really matters. Thesestats matter. So we were like,
how cool would be if we actuallylet the user put those instincts or those
(07:24):
that knowledge in and then we takeit put it into our algorithm and say
you just build a personalized model.You don't have to do all the hard
work. Just could give us yourgut feel and your knowledge. We've made
it really simple for people to dothat. So now you have your own
and then model or sean model thatyou've built with Rhythm and it tells you
here's where you should put your money. My model would have the Pittsburgh Steelers
(07:46):
going undefeated. Though you have thatfavorite stealer model, well, you know
what it would do. It wouldhelp you with that clients. And that's
where let's not bet with our heart. If we want to bet, you
can have the heart bets, butjust have a slick. My always think
is okay, go bet your heart, but then the rest of your bets
(08:09):
should be data backed, and let'sdo that. You cause, but let's
like be sworre about it. Letme jump right back in here, Evan,
because that is it's perfect. Itreally is, because just what you
said about the Pittsburgh Steelers, obviouslywe fall into our biases. It's just
natural. You're in Philadelphia with theaffiliates. I don't think they're ever going
(08:30):
to lose a game. So that'swhere rhythm comes in hand. And it's
maybe not something that you want togo ten out of ten times of follow
a rhythm wager, but at leastit might steer you in the right path
and have you thinking outside your ownbiases. I really dig that exactly,
and like, we know, look, I'm a sports fan, I played
sports, I coached sports. LikeI'm not trying to I have loves of
(08:54):
NH in a league. I'm nottrying to take away that love of that
game. And that's like your bedwhere you want to talk about it with
your boys. We're not trying todo that. What we're trying to stay
is like, here's all the gamesthat exist, backed by data, back
by predictive models that are AI.Here's where they think the edges are.
Have your favorite game and bet ithowever you want, But then obviously you're
(09:16):
probably gonna want to have action onother games and you don't have that heart.
And then it's like what do wedo here, guys? Who are
we betting tonight? And how whyare we making these selections? And so
what's been really cool I mean,that's why our users just love this is
because you still get a say init. Because you could input your own
if you want to. We haveanother way to do it. You can
talk later about if you want toput in your own like instincts, and
(09:39):
then of course we spit it backout to you and say here's your role.
So so tell me how you cameup with this, right because you
alluded to you were a basketball player, you're a basketball coach. What's the
journey that takes somebody from from thatline of work to figuring out how to
come up with a piece of softwarethat, you know, let's be people
(10:01):
have a more engaging sports wagering experience. It was I went to business school.
I was a CEO at the timeand decided I needed more analytical training.
I went to business school. Iwas in a this class called Data
Models and Decisions at MIT. Sowe were doing using data, making predictive
(10:22):
models and then that would allow usto make decisions in our business. Essentially,
this is what pro vetters are doing. They have a team of quants.
Billy Walter is the computer group that'sbeen around for a like, there's
a team of wants in these syndicatesthat are trying to that are building predictive
models. We were doing that withinour company and literally in that class,
(10:43):
did you not I just all ofa sudden stopped and was like, this
should be available for sports betters.This we are making decisions on major We're
using this for major business decisions.Betters are doing it. Start doing all
this research on it. How they'rehelping people make better decisions. I mean,
(11:07):
there wasn't really a lot of companiesdoing this or doing it, and
what we felt like or I waslike the right way, I didn't want
to. I was like, rightnow I could go get a tout,
but like, I don't know howthey made a decision. Wouldn't this be
cool to give access to everyone?And so stopped writing, stopped listening to
(11:28):
class in class, and just startedwriting, Hey, what if we could
combine you know, knowledge and dopredictive modeling and have you know. That's
really where it all came about.And so the cool thing about when you
go to business school at MIT isthere's this idea lab. If you have
an idea, you get to takeit into a lab and you get to
(11:50):
build basically a business in that lab. And they poke holes through it and
put you through the wringer, andthat's what you want. And so you
can leave there with an idea thathas been really punched, if you will,
and worked through. And so that'swhere it all was developed. I
wanted to just quick follow up,what year are we talking about when this
idea first came into your head?Twenty nineteen? Gotcha? So this is
(12:13):
like sports betting is in its infancyhere, but it's it's all the rage
and everyone's trying to figure out howto create a better mouse trap. And
you said, I think I gota better mouse trap, right. I
mean, it's but you came intobusiness school as a CEO of a company
that had nothing to do with this, and then said, you know what,
like, screw it, I'm justgonna I'm going to go back down
(12:39):
and start from scratch with something totallydifferent. Yeah. I came in there.
I was in a startups like coachbasketball, you know, for over
a decade Division and basketball, andI loved it. Then I left Division
and Basketball and went into the businessworld, went into a startup like six
of Us in the basement and lifescience recruiting and staff knew nothing about it,
(13:01):
but became a partner through the company, and then the private equity from
that bought us. Said hey,the succession plan is you'll be the CEO,
and so that's what happened. Andthen then they said, hey,
let's like take this. We loveeverything that's we love the margins. Why
don't we build a conglomerate. Andso that's what we did. We built
(13:24):
a conglomerate. And so I dida lot of mergers and that was you
know, the whole m and aintegrations and was running to businesses by the
end in the portfolio. And thenwe sold it for a really nice amount
of money. And during that timeI went back to school. I like
an idiot, like why did Iput that on my plate? I had
(13:45):
still like what was I thinking?But the cool part about it was I
came with this idea, so soldthe company that I was the CEO with
and then was able to go rightinto rhythm and get you know, funding
and all that good stuff. Sowhat what does that look like like?
Getting funding? Is it? Youknow? I mean right? Because it's
here here. I'm a I'm asmart person with a great resume, and
(14:11):
I just came out of an elitebusiness school and I've got a great idea,
but like, what do you do? I mean, how do you
how do you go convince people findeven find people and convince them, you
know, they want to write youa check. Well lucky because when I
went to this business school, youmeet a lot of amazing people and the
(14:33):
whole thing there is network and helpingyour friends and just no egos in our
class, just everyone was there tohelp each other. It was so cool.
It really felt like I was onthe team again. It was like
the most enjoyable experience. And Imean it's so hard. That was an
enjoyable was the class work was notenjoy just getting to know people, going
having drinks and building great friendships.So I had somebody in the class that
(14:56):
gave my dack to, you know, a VC firm without really my knowledge,
and he called me. He's like, you know, hey, I
just gave your deck to someone.They're gonna call you. They think this
idea is amazing. And I waslike what, Like why did you do
that? That is not a deckI want you know, it wasn't investor
ready and he was like, no, it is. It's awesome. And
(15:18):
so that is how my introduction intothe VC space. Was literally got a
call and then and then it getsa little more involved in there, right
like then and I've raised now,we've raised a pre seed round, a
seed bround, and just close theseed plus round. So you know,
it's been quite a journey of raising. I would help anyone that's listening to
(15:41):
this if you ever want help ofraising, like, please call me.
I can give you all my mistakesand learning excellent. Yeah, I'm sure
that there are plenty of people thatwould love to take you up on that
off for me, And that's forsure. I wanted to follow up and
from the standpoint of when you saidokay and in my you could take this
and they're going to poke holes init, what was one of those holes
(16:04):
that maybe caught your attention, caughtother people's eyes, and you were able
to go ahead and fix what waslike maybe the number one a hole that
they poked into a rhythm from thejump. Yeah, the first hole was
I don't know if you're going tobe able to take something complex and shrink
it down that a user can understandthis that was a big hole. Was
(16:29):
like walk us through UXDUI, likethis is for you, this is like,
you get this, but how areother people going to get this?
How is it someone that's betting twentydollars a game ten dollars a game going
to get this that has never evenheard of a predictive model? How are
you going to take the word modelingand make it like mainstream that sounds you
know, those were all the holesand they're they're rightly, So this is
(16:53):
hard, and I was just likedogged about. My biggest thing was like,
no, this is like amazing whatwe can do people should have access
to. I was dogging in that, like datekeeping, this is outrageous and
everyone is datekeeping. That's how Ireally feel like this is something that people
should have in their hands to makebetter decisions. And it's actually can be
(17:15):
fun, but it's really hard todo, and so I would just dog
it into my approach of like I'mgonna make this as easy as possible without
stripping down the validity of it.And that's always a balance, and as
still is today, I would bekidding you guys if I'm not literally on
a call in like an hour withour Uxui team where we're gonna we're revamping
Uxui all the time. So thathas still remained. A punch is how
(17:40):
do we reduce this that somebody canjust get on our ab and understand immediately.
Number one, and then number twois always you're a B two C
company. How are you gonna marketthis? What's the cap going to look
like? You know, it's costof acquiring customers? What's you know,
how are you going to create yourmind marketing to fly wheel? A lot
of punches in that those were thekind of the two main things that still
(18:03):
remain to this day we're solving.I was going to ask you about that
second one, because that's a hurdlefor everyone, right, I mean ranging
from sportsbook operators who B two Cbusiness needs to get out there and have
the world know about it, becauseyou can have the world's best mouse trap,
(18:23):
but if no one knows the exists, then it doesn't do how to
get So what's in your approach tothat? Like, what do you do
when obviously you've raised some money andyou can afford to spend some but you
still you're still limited in what youcan do. Yeah, our approach has
been this, we did go outand build an amazing product. So we
have an amazing team and we havean amazing product, and then it's like,
(18:45):
now, how do we get eyesof this thing? And it is
First, we did this marketing hackthat worked really well, which was a
lot of influencers on a micro andmacro influencers kind of feeding each other.
That worked. That was amazing.That really helped us kind of take off,
if you will, where we foundsome product market fit. Now it's
like, you can't just keep hacking. You've got to like have something that
(19:07):
can scale. And so we havethis, you know, incredible marketing plan
that's well drawn out that we'll starthitting on August first. It's got definitely
there's you know, a few channels, but are you know our biggest thing
is we are partnering, which thoseshould be announced pretty soon with some operators
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that not just in an affiliate way, like I just don't believe. I
think that's just an old way ofdoing things. So we're trying to get
real creative with operators of how wecan you know, work together. And
so there's some pretty interesting things thatwe're we're about to sign some some really
good things. So I was likethis, look, there's a lot of
(19:52):
people that have spent a ton ofmoney on building communities. We have a
tool that can help those communities.Let's go partner with those companies that already
spent all that money. We spendour money on. Obviously, it's costly
to build this kind of tech.You got to get the data, you
got to get the people, you'vegot to get the engineers, the quants,
you've got to make the think flowand predict in real time. That's
(20:15):
where it was, and now we'regoing to go where people have spent a
lot of money. And then we'vejust we've also had some really cool,
you know, popular sports guys thatwant to help us to grow and there
you know, their communities are goingto be really helpful in this fall.
So we're pretty excited about that too. So a slightly different question for you.
(20:37):
You've now been working within the youknow, the betting community for for
four or five years. What doyou think your experience as a female within
the community. Have there been anysurprises for you, you know, having
gone to a number of these conferences, I would say there's a certainly an
underrepresentation and just curious if that's youknow, what your experience has been.
(21:03):
Yeah, it was, you know, I hadn't been the community that long,
but like a couple of a coupleof years. But yeah, it's
been the I haven't been in communitiesthat have been so male dominated, so
this was new for me. Igrew up with two brothers and so that's
(21:26):
been you know, those things arehelpful. So yeah, I mean to
answer that question, it was alot of these conferences or you know,
but it wasn't like I didn't knowwhen I got into this that, like
all of our marketing is geared towardsyou know, a certain age and a
certain and male denmographics. So Iknew getting into this this was going to
(21:51):
be heavy male dominated. But I'veyou know, that's just the nature of
You're getting into something that's male dominated, So that's just the nature of it.
I don't look at it. I'ma real practical person, so I
don't tend to look any further thanof course, this is a male dominated
place. It's really it's number one, you know, just from the standpoint
(22:15):
of where I'm at. I'm inthe content space, so you do see
a lot more women in the contentspace of sports. This is next level
though, this is like you are, I'm in it. I'm in the
little trick I do there. Ihave a couple of different like aliases,
(22:37):
so I can present as like amale avapar or something, so then I
can talk to people and they don'tknow that I'm actually a female. That
has been Yeah, I feel likethat's unfortunate. Yeah it is, it
is, but it's like it is, but I need to get stuff done.
(23:02):
And for me to get stuff done, this is the environment I'm living
in, and this is a hackthat I can use to get what I
need done and so or not.It just again just super practical. That
is what I've been able to do, and it's been and it's been really
helpful. Yeah, I get it. It just sucks that that's to hear
(23:22):
that. Yeah, that that definitelyhits you a certain type of way,
and I'm loving that the fact thatyour honesty. I would just tell you
straight up, Megan that I don'thave much, but I could probably put
fifty bucks together. I would putit right behind you. I believe in
what you are preaching. I'm hereRhythm dot com people, All right,
let's go ahead. I wanted tofollow up with this question right now.
How many people are working for Rhythmwe have there's ten of us okay,
(23:48):
excellent, And as far as whereyou're at in twenty twenty four, you
did say you had a bunch ofnew stuff that's coming up here in the
fall, and this is take thiswherever you want to go with it.
I'm just curious, how do youview a win? How do you view
success? Is it people signing up? Is it people you know all of
(24:10):
a sudden traction? And socials?Are you checking this daily? Weekly,
monthly, yearly? Like, howdo you view a win when it comes
to rhythm? Yeah, I checked. I mean living and breathing this,
so it's it's constant, it isminute. So the way that we view
a success is acquisite. Customer acquisitionis subscriptions. So we have few subscriptions
(24:36):
twenty nine ninety nine for core andthen ninety nine dollars a month for premium
users. We view it as awin when people take our steven day free
trial, they sign up, andthen they convert because they love it and
they want more of it. Andthen obviously you're looking at churn. So
those are the two like, thoseare wins for us as simple as I
can say. There's a huge marketingfunnel that you go through and then there's
(24:59):
also like social like you mentioned likeare you getting views? You know those
are for brand and like educational awarenessand those are great too, those are
but for me to like brass tackslike you know, it's it's customer acquisition
and how many free click free usersthat we have if you want to mind
a little bit behind the scenes conversions, how are you doing percentage wise to
(25:22):
success rate from Hey, your peopleare signing up for the free and then
converting them into signing up and becominga member. We're doing great. It
is in the debt, the debtof summer right now, so like not
a lot of waygering on the homerun derby. Yeah, it's yeah,
we have so I would you know, if you guys will have me,
(25:47):
I'd love to come back on inthe fall after we launch college football and
NFL and and we have multiple sportsavailable once and then we can talk like
here's what we did with our launchand here's what we've seen so far.
Because it's hard. July is astrange month for every betting community. So
(26:07):
even if your data looks good,it's gonna be lower and that's not exciting
for me. So I'm excited forbigger, Like, I just cannot wait
for honestly, August first to gethere so we can start pumping out football
content. Sean, I think weshould take Megan up on this. And
you're in Boston, right, Meghan, I am. Yeah, we're gonna
We're gonna do this live from Bostonin the fall, and uh, we're
(26:30):
gonna hit up Tony's Clambar in Wilston. I'm in Massachusetts. My dad's from
Quincy. So this is like mythese are my childhood August stomping ground,
getting this fried clams and bellies.We're coming. We're coming up north.
This is awesome. Now you're andyou know what that's Hey, look as
(26:52):
far as the content space and hostingme, and that's exactly where I'm at
mentally. It's like, get meto August. Let me. Let me
just come back to that though foryou, because you know, and it
kind of goes hand in hand.Is there something that you are looking at
when it comes to this dead areathat maybe you guys will be doing differently
in years to come. Yes,yes, the dead area. We don't
(27:15):
have MLB built. We opted notto because we needed a little bit bigger
team. Our quants weren't comfortable thatyou know, MLB. The Sharps have
been beat by the MLB for thelast three seasons. It's a heart it's
so we decided not to build.Let me tell you, we got just
you know, crushed on this withour users. They were so upset with
(27:37):
us. But it was like,you know, these are the hard decisions
you make where you're like, guys, I could we could put something out,
it won't be that good even thoughyou know I could say yes to
this because you want it, butlike, we really want to build with
integrity. So let's give us anotheryear and we'll put something out that actually
you we can trust. So wesaid no to MLB. So two things
(27:57):
for next summer and that'll be fantasticberOne, we'll have w NBA props out
right now, just game picks areout. Everybody loves props, so we'll
have those done. We'll have MLBnext summer, and we'll have golf built
out further than our product exists today. So we're getting some really good traction
with the w and with golf,and those products will be better next year
(28:18):
along with MLB. Any idea whyyou think MLB is harder than the other
major sports. I mean, arkonce it just there's so much data that
they would have they needed another theyneeded another brain. It was just more
like they needed more time to buildit right. And so we didn't have
(28:38):
time to go buying the type ofbrain that we needed. And now we're
now we have it and we'll beable to build it. And you know,
I'm working with just you know,I'm working with people that is incredibly
the most high integrity. I mean, my ETO is from the military.
He retired from the military to comebuild Rhythm. He was the head of
(28:59):
kessel run is, the software divisionof the Air Force. So he was
doing help. He was using predictedmodels to help people to save lives,
and now he is helping people betsmarter. So these are people that it's
like athletic militaries, basically our entireteam. And so no one's gonna do
you know, we're not gonna doanything that isn't up to our par and
(29:21):
so and and we've decided to puta steak in the sand, like we're
like, look, there are somebusiness decisions we're making. We're all very
clear why we're making them, andwe're putting a steak in the sand of
like we're not where our product isgoing to be top notch, like and
that might not help the business inthe short term, but we believe in
the long term it will. Andit's those are easy words for like me
(29:44):
to say, like, you know, like of course you would do that,
but I'm gonna tell you when you'rewhen you're caught, like when your
user base is just on top ofyou to get you. Guys know how
chatty the betting community is. Whenthey are like just aggressively coming after you
from not building MLB. It wouldbe easy. You would be like,
maybe you should just build it.You know they want it, but we're
(30:06):
just not like that. We're like, no, let's we'll take the heat
and it'll be better later. Yeah, you gotta have a thick skin to
uh succeed in this world. ButI couldn't agree with you more. I
think there there's no shortage Sean.You know we've talked about this. There's
no shortage of like content that's outthere, there's no shortage of apps that
(30:26):
are out there, ideas, allof that, right, And it's how
do you differentiate yourself, And it'sby creating a product that's got quality and
whether it's the content and it's look, we know what we're talking about.
We get interesting guests, right,we do the things that set us apart.
But if you're going to build ananalytical model, if if nothing else,
it's got to be good at analytics. And if you if you fail
(30:49):
that piece, then like what elsematter? Me? Can tell me this
the math that goes into this,and the presumably it's got applications outside of
sports betting, right, Oh yeah, there were plenty. We just we
did ask that a lot, butyou know, we have to just stay
(31:12):
incredibly focused on sports betting. Butyeah, this could translate too many places,
not just for betting on it,and I don't just mean betting on
other other things, right, butI mean we could literally take this.
We have a whole list of otherplaces that this could easily translate to.
(31:34):
And could I like use this tohelp predict you know, like did my
kids like in their room today?Yes? Yeah, we've described ten chance
I'm gonna I'm gonna manually just thatdown to zero point ten. You can
get really creative with this. Aslong as we have data sources, we
(32:00):
can do a lot with this,like and there's they're definitely we've also you
know, we've had we've been veryfocused on staying in sports, but there's
been some nights where you know,we're sitting around having a couple of drinks
thinking about where some other places wouldbe cool that we can do this in.
And there's been some pretty cool placesthat could make making like really big
impact, you know, but weare just heavily focused in we want to
(32:25):
win. We're like the most competitivepeople ever and we want to win and
help people. And there would benothing more fitting than like just to have
this giant user base that is havingsuccess and there's a community around this and
that they're exposed to something so powerfuland they don't have to actually go be
a math wizard to do it that, Like we we are just all focused
(32:52):
on that. Well, this wasexcellent, Megan. I can't thank you
enough. First of all, justso bright, and you have a great
product that's number one, and youdo have some great people that are behind
well not behind the scenes, butare on socials. Josh Avabon from Beeston
does a great job promoting you guys. I know James here locally in Philadelphia
(33:13):
has a big following and those aretwo of the main reasons why I started
following, But man, I wishI learned a little bit more about you,
because that would have been the mainreason an unbelievable female founder in our
first one here on behind the bigEvan. So this was a great get
and Meghan, I can't thank youenough much much luck as far as continue
just moving forward here and we willdefinitely be checking you out on Rhythm dot
(33:38):
com and taking you up on thatoffer with a road trip to Boston.
Evan absolutely absolutely, Meghan, thanksso much for coming on. We uh,
we really appreciate it, and uhglad that we're able to help you,
know, to to promote the companyand the product, because I think
it's awesome. Then you know,if you haven't checked it out yet,
(33:58):
you definitely should. Evan Hlotta,thank you so much for having me.
It's been amazing and I look forwardto doing it again and thank you for
the kind words to really appreciate itonce again. Meaghan Lanham, founder and
CEO of Rhythm. You can findMegan on socials at a Megan Underscore Lanham
l A n h a M andRhythm dot com that is two ms.
(34:22):
Rhythm dot com
You are listening to Behind the Vegue, a podcast mini series that takes you
beyond the bets and strategies and moreinto the business of the sports betting industry.
Now Here are your hosts, SeanBrace and Evan Davis. That's right
Behind the Veig Episode three here showBrace Evan Davis with you here and hopefully
(00:21):
you've enjoyed our first two installments ofBehind the Vig. Ev and I am
excited about our next guest coming uphere for episode three on Behind the Veg
Meghan Lanham, founder and CEO ofRhythm Rhythm dot com. And it's a
model where they are predicting all thingson sports gambling from NFL college football,
(00:42):
NBA college basketball, and more.Really excited a number of reasons. Of
course, we're gonna dive deep intothe sports gambling world. But number two,
Meghan is our first female founder onBehind the Veg. Yeah, I'm
really excited for two things. Oneis just to chat with her because she's
got such a fastating background and youknow she can talk more about it.
(01:03):
But she was a she was anathlete, and she was a coach.
Yes, and then she you know, helped found a company that had nothing
to do with this and went toyou know, business school. I mean,
she's got she's just got an unbelievablebackground and uh and our really really
interesting journey to get to where sheis today. So really excited to talk
(01:23):
about that, and and equally excitedto talk about Rhythm, but the company
and the product which is really cool. You know, we talk a ton
about like AI these days, andand Rhythm has sort of taken that and
and distilled it down so that peoplethat maybe like me, were history majors
in college can still figure out howto use some of these some of these
(01:45):
advanced math approaches toward their uh sportsbetting experience and and and use them.
And and I think they're really bringingthat to the masses, which is really
exciting. So excited to to chatwith her and excited to learn more about
what Rhythm is and where it's going. All right, let's do it.
We bring in Meghan Lanham, whois the founder and CEO of Rhythm,
(02:07):
and you can find Meghan on socialsthat Megan underscore lan Haam that's l A
n H A M. And ofcourse Rhythm, which we just talked a
ton about, that's at double mR I t h m M. That's
rhythm dot com. Meaghan, greatto have you. How are we doing
today, Hey Sean, Hey Evan. I'm doing wonderful. It is a
(02:29):
great to say. Morning Meaghan.I want to open up and as always,
get a little background about you andone of our favorite questions to ask,
because we all assume that if you'rein this space, you are a
sports fan. I we have yetto interview someone that has yet to be
a sports fan. I know they'reout there. Something tells me you might
be different here. So, Megan, I want to ask you your favorite
(02:52):
childhood sports memory, if you wantin mind, I would love that.
This is great. Favorite childhood memorywould be We're gonna go back guys,
Spud Webb, Dominique Wilkins slam dunkConso wow, No, like best childhood
(03:14):
memory even went as far as Imean, I was dub using VHS because
that's what was around, taping itand then dubbing it over with audio of
Ben Halen Jim I got all.I went, that's like eighties Texas.
This is odd. This is sogood. You know, were you an
(03:36):
Atlanta Hawks fan or just so I'mlike a five to five point guard on
a good day. So and soobviously spud Webb I was. I was
like growing up, I'm in Illinois'min the cornfields. I love Bulls and
I love the Lakers. We canget into that later of how I became
(03:57):
a Laker fan, but you gotI love the small if you're a small
point guard, you love small pointguards. And then just to see him
elevate, it was like, thisguy is walking on air. Like.
So if you those of you thatare young and don't know spudweb like,
get on YouTube, hit it,go watch that. It's unbelievable. It
really was. Yeah, it reallywas. And just the funny part of
(04:19):
of van Halen jump over it.Now you got to follow up and do
you still have those video cassettes,the VHS tapes that are still in existence,
because I would love to see that. I have looked at my parents'
house and I cannot flan them.That might have been my best work of
all time. Great, excellent,Well you're doing a bang up job over
(04:44):
there at Rhythm, and I knowwe got some other things that we want
to discuss with you and and yougetting to where we're at right now with
this venture. But let's let's goahead and get into Rhythm here. Megan
and Rhythm is the AI sports bettingapp for player props and game predictions.
Backed by AI predictive models. Rhythmhelps you make smarter and faster betting decisions
(05:05):
across NFL college football, NBA collegebasketball, golf, and w n B
A. Does that sound about rightfor you as far as straight off of
the Rhythm dot com website, that'sperfect. So let me let me follow
up because this is why I wantedto jump right into it. There are
people out there that might be,uh, a little not fearful of AI,
(05:29):
but man, all right, AIlike a little like what's going on
there? Really is? Is?Is AI able to predict and steer us
in the right paths when it comesto the sports gaming? You know how
people are in this industry. Ideal with them daily. And now we're
suggesting that AI is a way thatwe can go ahead and have success in
the whether whatever market it may be, whatever sport there. How did you
(05:54):
come about that? How? Imean it's got to be complex, correct,
Oh, it's incredibly complex. Yeah, And that was like the genesis
algorithms, Like how can we takesomething so complex and bring it to a
wreck better, a casual better,or even a sharp better that doesn't have
time or money to you know,continue to evolving their their betting models.
(06:15):
But then, how do we shrinksomething complex down so the user can have
access to something like that without havingto have the knowledge of how to build
a predictive model. Predicted modeling withoutgetting too nerdy is a branch of AI.
Most people right now think of AIin terms of languages and chat gypt,
which is fine. This is math. This is quants that are incredibly
(06:39):
their geniuses, mathematical wizards that aretaking information, building an algorithm, having
the machine learn, and then spittingout, hey, here at tonight's games
that exist. We build a model. Here's where the model says, there's
an advantage, there's an edge.This is what this is where you should
bet. We're the main Where wewanted to make it a little but more
(07:00):
cooler than that, is like,what if the user could actually put in
a couple of their own instincts,or if they had knowledge, if they
played the sport, or just simplylike I've watched a lot of football,
I know what really matters. Thesestats matter. So we were like,
how cool would be if we actuallylet the user put those instincts or those
(07:24):
that knowledge in and then we takeit put it into our algorithm and say
you just build a personalized model.You don't have to do all the hard
work. Just could give us yourgut feel and your knowledge. We've made
it really simple for people to dothat. So now you have your own
and then model or sean model thatyou've built with Rhythm and it tells you
here's where you should put your money. My model would have the Pittsburgh Steelers
(07:46):
going undefeated. Though you have thatfavorite stealer model, well, you know
what it would do. It wouldhelp you with that clients. And that's
where let's not bet with our heart. If we want to bet, you
can have the heart bets, butjust have a slick. My always think
is okay, go bet your heart, but then the rest of your bets
(08:09):
should be data backed, and let'sdo that. You cause, but let's
like be sworre about it. Letme jump right back in here, Evan,
because that is it's perfect. Itreally is, because just what you
said about the Pittsburgh Steelers, obviouslywe fall into our biases. It's just
natural. You're in Philadelphia with theaffiliates. I don't think they're ever going
(08:30):
to lose a game. So that'swhere rhythm comes in hand. And it's
maybe not something that you want togo ten out of ten times of follow
a rhythm wager, but at leastit might steer you in the right path
and have you thinking outside your ownbiases. I really dig that exactly,
and like, we know, look, I'm a sports fan, I played
sports, I coached sports. LikeI'm not trying to I have loves of
(08:54):
NH in a league. I'm nottrying to take away that love of that
game. And that's like your bedwhere you want to talk about it with
your boys. We're not trying todo that. What we're trying to stay
is like, here's all the gamesthat exist, backed by data, back
by predictive models that are AI.Here's where they think the edges are.
Have your favorite game and bet ithowever you want, But then obviously you're
(09:16):
probably gonna want to have action onother games and you don't have that heart.
And then it's like what do wedo here, guys? Who are
we betting tonight? And how whyare we making these selections? And so
what's been really cool I mean,that's why our users just love this is
because you still get a say init. Because you could input your own
if you want to. We haveanother way to do it. You can
talk later about if you want toput in your own like instincts, and
(09:39):
then of course we spit it backout to you and say here's your role.
So so tell me how you cameup with this, right because you
alluded to you were a basketball player, you're a basketball coach. What's the
journey that takes somebody from from thatline of work to figuring out how to
come up with a piece of softwarethat, you know, let's be people
(10:01):
have a more engaging sports wagering experience. It was I went to business school.
I was a CEO at the timeand decided I needed more analytical training.
I went to business school. Iwas in a this class called Data
Models and Decisions at MIT. Sowe were doing using data, making predictive
(10:22):
models and then that would allow usto make decisions in our business. Essentially,
this is what pro vetters are doing. They have a team of quants.
Billy Walter is the computer group that'sbeen around for a like, there's
a team of wants in these syndicatesthat are trying to that are building predictive
models. We were doing that withinour company and literally in that class,
(10:43):
did you not I just all ofa sudden stopped and was like, this
should be available for sports betters.This we are making decisions on major We're
using this for major business decisions.Betters are doing it. Start doing all
this research on it. How they'rehelping people make better decisions. I mean,
(11:07):
there wasn't really a lot of companiesdoing this or doing it, and
what we felt like or I waslike the right way, I didn't want
to. I was like, rightnow I could go get a tout,
but like, I don't know howthey made a decision. Wouldn't this be
cool to give access to everyone?And so stopped writing, stopped listening to
(11:28):
class in class, and just startedwriting, Hey, what if we could
combine you know, knowledge and dopredictive modeling and have you know. That's
really where it all came about.And so the cool thing about when you
go to business school at MIT isthere's this idea lab. If you have
an idea, you get to takeit into a lab and you get to
(11:50):
build basically a business in that lab. And they poke holes through it and
put you through the wringer, andthat's what you want. And so you
can leave there with an idea thathas been really punched, if you will,
and worked through. And so that'swhere it all was developed. I
wanted to just quick follow up,what year are we talking about when this
idea first came into your head?Twenty nineteen? Gotcha? So this is
(12:13):
like sports betting is in its infancyhere, but it's it's all the rage
and everyone's trying to figure out howto create a better mouse trap. And
you said, I think I gota better mouse trap, right. I
mean, it's but you came intobusiness school as a CEO of a company
that had nothing to do with this, and then said, you know what,
like, screw it, I'm justgonna I'm going to go back down
(12:39):
and start from scratch with something totallydifferent. Yeah. I came in there.
I was in a startups like coachbasketball, you know, for over
a decade Division and basketball, andI loved it. Then I left Division
and Basketball and went into the businessworld, went into a startup like six
of Us in the basement and lifescience recruiting and staff knew nothing about it,
(13:01):
but became a partner through the company, and then the private equity from
that bought us. Said hey,the succession plan is you'll be the CEO,
and so that's what happened. Andthen then they said, hey,
let's like take this. We loveeverything that's we love the margins. Why
don't we build a conglomerate. Andso that's what we did. We built
(13:24):
a conglomerate. And so I dida lot of mergers and that was you
know, the whole m and aintegrations and was running to businesses by the
end in the portfolio. And thenwe sold it for a really nice amount
of money. And during that timeI went back to school. I like
an idiot, like why did Iput that on my plate? I had
(13:45):
still like what was I thinking?But the cool part about it was I
came with this idea, so soldthe company that I was the CEO with
and then was able to go rightinto rhythm and get you know, funding
and all that good stuff. Sowhat what does that look like like?
Getting funding? Is it? Youknow? I mean right? Because it's
here here. I'm a I'm asmart person with a great resume, and
(14:11):
I just came out of an elitebusiness school and I've got a great idea,
but like, what do you do? I mean, how do you
how do you go convince people findeven find people and convince them, you
know, they want to write youa check. Well lucky because when I
went to this business school, youmeet a lot of amazing people and the
(14:33):
whole thing there is network and helpingyour friends and just no egos in our
class, just everyone was there tohelp each other. It was so cool.
It really felt like I was onthe team again. It was like
the most enjoyable experience. And Imean it's so hard. That was an
enjoyable was the class work was notenjoy just getting to know people, going
having drinks and building great friendships.So I had somebody in the class that
(14:56):
gave my dack to, you know, a VC firm without really my knowledge,
and he called me. He's like, you know, hey, I
just gave your deck to someone.They're gonna call you. They think this
idea is amazing. And I waslike what, Like why did you do
that? That is not a deckI want you know, it wasn't investor
ready and he was like, no, it is. It's awesome. And
(15:18):
so that is how my introduction intothe VC space. Was literally got a
call and then and then it getsa little more involved in there, right
like then and I've raised now,we've raised a pre seed round, a
seed bround, and just close theseed plus round. So you know,
it's been quite a journey of raising. I would help anyone that's listening to
(15:41):
this if you ever want help ofraising, like, please call me.
I can give you all my mistakesand learning excellent. Yeah, I'm sure
that there are plenty of people thatwould love to take you up on that
off for me, And that's forsure. I wanted to follow up and
from the standpoint of when you saidokay and in my you could take this
and they're going to poke holes init, what was one of those holes
(16:04):
that maybe caught your attention, caughtother people's eyes, and you were able
to go ahead and fix what waslike maybe the number one a hole that
they poked into a rhythm from thejump. Yeah, the first hole was
I don't know if you're going tobe able to take something complex and shrink
it down that a user can understandthis that was a big hole. Was
(16:29):
like walk us through UXDUI, likethis is for you, this is like,
you get this, but how areother people going to get this?
How is it someone that's betting twentydollars a game ten dollars a game going
to get this that has never evenheard of a predictive model? How are
you going to take the word modelingand make it like mainstream that sounds you
know, those were all the holesand they're they're rightly, So this is
(16:53):
hard, and I was just likedogged about. My biggest thing was like,
no, this is like amazing whatwe can do people should have access
to. I was dogging in that, like datekeeping, this is outrageous and
everyone is datekeeping. That's how Ireally feel like this is something that people
should have in their hands to makebetter decisions. And it's actually can be
(17:15):
fun, but it's really hard todo, and so I would just dog
it into my approach of like I'mgonna make this as easy as possible without
stripping down the validity of it.And that's always a balance, and as
still is today, I would bekidding you guys if I'm not literally on
a call in like an hour withour Uxui team where we're gonna we're revamping
Uxui all the time. So thathas still remained. A punch is how
(17:40):
do we reduce this that somebody canjust get on our ab and understand immediately.
Number one, and then number twois always you're a B two C
company. How are you gonna marketthis? What's the cap going to look
like? You know, it's costof acquiring customers? What's you know,
how are you going to create yourmind marketing to fly wheel? A lot
of punches in that those were thekind of the two main things that still
(18:03):
remain to this day we're solving.I was going to ask you about that
second one, because that's a hurdlefor everyone, right, I mean ranging
from sportsbook operators who B two Cbusiness needs to get out there and have
the world know about it, becauseyou can have the world's best mouse trap,
(18:23):
but if no one knows the exists, then it doesn't do how to
get So what's in your approach tothat? Like, what do you do
when obviously you've raised some money andyou can afford to spend some but you
still you're still limited in what youcan do. Yeah, our approach has
been this, we did go outand build an amazing product. So we
have an amazing team and we havean amazing product, and then it's like,
(18:45):
now, how do we get eyesof this thing? And it is
First, we did this marketing hackthat worked really well, which was a
lot of influencers on a micro andmacro influencers kind of feeding each other.
That worked. That was amazing.That really helped us kind of take off,
if you will, where we foundsome product market fit. Now it's
like, you can't just keep hacking. You've got to like have something that
(19:07):
can scale. And so we havethis, you know, incredible marketing plan
that's well drawn out that we'll starthitting on August first. It's got definitely
there's you know, a few channels, but are you know our biggest thing
is we are partnering, which thoseshould be announced pretty soon with some operators
(19:30):
that not just in an affiliate way, like I just don't believe. I
think that's just an old way ofdoing things. So we're trying to get
real creative with operators of how wecan you know, work together. And
so there's some pretty interesting things thatwe're we're about to sign some some really
good things. So I was likethis, look, there's a lot of
(19:52):
people that have spent a ton ofmoney on building communities. We have a
tool that can help those communities.Let's go partner with those companies that already
spent all that money. We spendour money on. Obviously, it's costly
to build this kind of tech.You got to get the data, you
got to get the people, you'vegot to get the engineers, the quants,
you've got to make the think flowand predict in real time. That's
(20:15):
where it was, and now we'regoing to go where people have spent a
lot of money. And then we'vejust we've also had some really cool,
you know, popular sports guys thatwant to help us to grow and there
you know, their communities are goingto be really helpful in this fall.
So we're pretty excited about that too. So a slightly different question for you.
(20:37):
You've now been working within the youknow, the betting community for for
four or five years. What doyou think your experience as a female within
the community. Have there been anysurprises for you, you know, having
gone to a number of these conferences, I would say there's a certainly an
underrepresentation and just curious if that's youknow, what your experience has been.
(21:03):
Yeah, it was, you know, I hadn't been the community that long,
but like a couple of a coupleof years. But yeah, it's
been the I haven't been in communitiesthat have been so male dominated, so
this was new for me. Igrew up with two brothers and so that's
(21:26):
been you know, those things arehelpful. So yeah, I mean to
answer that question, it was alot of these conferences or you know,
but it wasn't like I didn't knowwhen I got into this that, like
all of our marketing is geared towardsyou know, a certain age and a
certain and male denmographics. So Iknew getting into this this was going to
(21:51):
be heavy male dominated. But I'veyou know, that's just the nature of
You're getting into something that's male dominated, So that's just the nature of it.
I don't look at it. I'ma real practical person, so I
don't tend to look any further thanof course, this is a male dominated
place. It's really it's number one, you know, just from the standpoint
(22:15):
of where I'm at. I'm inthe content space, so you do see
a lot more women in the contentspace of sports. This is next level
though, this is like you are, I'm in it. I'm in the
little trick I do there. Ihave a couple of different like aliases,
(22:37):
so I can present as like amale avapar or something, so then I
can talk to people and they don'tknow that I'm actually a female. That
has been Yeah, I feel likethat's unfortunate. Yeah it is, it
is, but it's like it is, but I need to get stuff done.
(23:02):
And for me to get stuff done, this is the environment I'm living
in, and this is a hackthat I can use to get what I
need done and so or not.It just again just super practical. That
is what I've been able to do, and it's been and it's been really
helpful. Yeah, I get it. It just sucks that that's to hear
(23:22):
that. Yeah, that that definitelyhits you a certain type of way,
and I'm loving that the fact thatyour honesty. I would just tell you
straight up, Megan that I don'thave much, but I could probably put
fifty bucks together. I would putit right behind you. I believe in
what you are preaching. I'm hereRhythm dot com people, All right,
let's go ahead. I wanted tofollow up with this question right now.
How many people are working for Rhythmwe have there's ten of us okay,
(23:48):
excellent, And as far as whereyou're at in twenty twenty four, you
did say you had a bunch ofnew stuff that's coming up here in the
fall, and this is take thiswherever you want to go with it.
I'm just curious, how do youview a win? How do you view
success? Is it people signing up? Is it people you know all of
(24:10):
a sudden traction? And socials?Are you checking this daily? Weekly,
monthly, yearly? Like, howdo you view a win when it comes
to rhythm? Yeah, I checked. I mean living and breathing this,
so it's it's constant, it isminute. So the way that we view
a success is acquisite. Customer acquisitionis subscriptions. So we have few subscriptions
(24:36):
twenty nine ninety nine for core andthen ninety nine dollars a month for premium
users. We view it as awin when people take our steven day free
trial, they sign up, andthen they convert because they love it and
they want more of it. Andthen obviously you're looking at churn. So
those are the two like, thoseare wins for us as simple as I
can say. There's a huge marketingfunnel that you go through and then there's
(24:59):
also like social like you mentioned likeare you getting views? You know those
are for brand and like educational awarenessand those are great too, those are
but for me to like brass tackslike you know, it's it's customer acquisition
and how many free click free usersthat we have if you want to mind
a little bit behind the scenes conversions, how are you doing percentage wise to
(25:22):
success rate from Hey, your peopleare signing up for the free and then
converting them into signing up and becominga member. We're doing great. It
is in the debt, the debtof summer right now, so like not
a lot of waygering on the homerun derby. Yeah, it's yeah,
we have so I would you know, if you guys will have me,
(25:47):
I'd love to come back on inthe fall after we launch college football and
NFL and and we have multiple sportsavailable once and then we can talk like
here's what we did with our launchand here's what we've seen so far.
Because it's hard. July is astrange month for every betting community. So
(26:07):
even if your data looks good,it's gonna be lower and that's not exciting
for me. So I'm excited forbigger, Like, I just cannot wait
for honestly, August first to gethere so we can start pumping out football
content. Sean, I think weshould take Megan up on this. And
you're in Boston, right, Meghan, I am. Yeah, we're gonna
We're gonna do this live from Bostonin the fall, and uh, we're
(26:30):
gonna hit up Tony's Clambar in Wilston. I'm in Massachusetts. My dad's from
Quincy. So this is like mythese are my childhood August stomping ground,
getting this fried clams and bellies.We're coming. We're coming up north.
This is awesome. Now you're andyou know what that's Hey, look as
(26:52):
far as the content space and hostingme, and that's exactly where I'm at
mentally. It's like, get meto August. Let me. Let me
just come back to that though foryou, because you know, and it
kind of goes hand in hand.Is there something that you are looking at
when it comes to this dead areathat maybe you guys will be doing differently
in years to come. Yes,yes, the dead area. We don't
(27:15):
have MLB built. We opted notto because we needed a little bit bigger
team. Our quants weren't comfortable thatyou know, MLB. The Sharps have
been beat by the MLB for thelast three seasons. It's a heart it's
so we decided not to build.Let me tell you, we got just
you know, crushed on this withour users. They were so upset with
(27:37):
us. But it was like,you know, these are the hard decisions
you make where you're like, guys, I could we could put something out,
it won't be that good even thoughyou know I could say yes to
this because you want it, butlike, we really want to build with
integrity. So let's give us anotheryear and we'll put something out that actually
you we can trust. So wesaid no to MLB. So two things
(27:57):
for next summer and that'll be fantasticberOne, we'll have w NBA props out
right now, just game picks areout. Everybody loves props, so we'll
have those done. We'll have MLBnext summer, and we'll have golf built
out further than our product exists today. So we're getting some really good traction
with the w and with golf,and those products will be better next year
(28:18):
along with MLB. Any idea whyyou think MLB is harder than the other
major sports. I mean, arkonce it just there's so much data that
they would have they needed another theyneeded another brain. It was just more
like they needed more time to buildit right. And so we didn't have
(28:38):
time to go buying the type ofbrain that we needed. And now we're
now we have it and we'll beable to build it. And you know,
I'm working with just you know,I'm working with people that is incredibly
the most high integrity. I mean, my ETO is from the military.
He retired from the military to comebuild Rhythm. He was the head of
(28:59):
kessel run is, the software divisionof the Air Force. So he was
doing help. He was using predictedmodels to help people to save lives,
and now he is helping people betsmarter. So these are people that it's
like athletic militaries, basically our entireteam. And so no one's gonna do
you know, we're not gonna doanything that isn't up to our par and
(29:21):
so and and we've decided to puta steak in the sand, like we're
like, look, there are somebusiness decisions we're making. We're all very
clear why we're making them, andwe're putting a steak in the sand of
like we're not where our product isgoing to be top notch, like and
that might not help the business inthe short term, but we believe in
the long term it will. Andit's those are easy words for like me
(29:44):
to say, like, you know, like of course you would do that,
but I'm gonna tell you when you'rewhen you're caught, like when your
user base is just on top ofyou to get you. Guys know how
chatty the betting community is. Whenthey are like just aggressively coming after you
from not building MLB. It wouldbe easy. You would be like,
maybe you should just build it.You know they want it, but we're
(30:06):
just not like that. We're like, no, let's we'll take the heat
and it'll be better later. Yeah, you gotta have a thick skin to
uh succeed in this world. ButI couldn't agree with you more. I
think there there's no shortage Sean.You know we've talked about this. There's
no shortage of like content that's outthere, there's no shortage of apps that
(30:26):
are out there, ideas, allof that, right, And it's how
do you differentiate yourself, And it'sby creating a product that's got quality and
whether it's the content and it's look, we know what we're talking about.
We get interesting guests, right,we do the things that set us apart.
But if you're going to build ananalytical model, if if nothing else,
it's got to be good at analytics. And if you if you fail
(30:49):
that piece, then like what elsematter? Me? Can tell me this
the math that goes into this,and the presumably it's got applications outside of
sports betting, right, Oh yeah, there were plenty. We just we
did ask that a lot, butyou know, we have to just stay
(31:12):
incredibly focused on sports betting. Butyeah, this could translate too many places,
not just for betting on it,and I don't just mean betting on
other other things, right, butI mean we could literally take this.
We have a whole list of otherplaces that this could easily translate to.
(31:34):
And could I like use this tohelp predict you know, like did my
kids like in their room today?Yes? Yeah, we've described ten chance
I'm gonna I'm gonna manually just thatdown to zero point ten. You can
get really creative with this. Aslong as we have data sources, we
(32:00):
can do a lot with this,like and there's they're definitely we've also you
know, we've had we've been veryfocused on staying in sports, but there's
been some nights where you know,we're sitting around having a couple of drinks
thinking about where some other places wouldbe cool that we can do this in.
And there's been some pretty cool placesthat could make making like really big
impact, you know, but weare just heavily focused in we want to
(32:25):
win. We're like the most competitivepeople ever and we want to win and
help people. And there would benothing more fitting than like just to have
this giant user base that is havingsuccess and there's a community around this and
that they're exposed to something so powerfuland they don't have to actually go be
a math wizard to do it that, Like we we are just all focused
(32:52):
on that. Well, this wasexcellent, Megan. I can't thank you
enough. First of all, justso bright, and you have a great
product that's number one, and youdo have some great people that are behind
well not behind the scenes, butare on socials. Josh Avabon from Beeston
does a great job promoting you guys. I know James here locally in Philadelphia
(33:13):
has a big following and those aretwo of the main reasons why I started
following, But man, I wishI learned a little bit more about you,
because that would have been the mainreason an unbelievable female founder in our
first one here on behind the bigEvan. So this was a great get
and Meghan, I can't thank youenough much much luck as far as continue
just moving forward here and we willdefinitely be checking you out on Rhythm dot
(33:38):
com and taking you up on thatoffer with a road trip to Boston.
Evan absolutely absolutely, Meghan, thanksso much for coming on. We uh,
we really appreciate it, and uhglad that we're able to help you,
know, to to promote the companyand the product, because I think
it's awesome. Then you know,if you haven't checked it out yet,
(33:58):
you definitely should. Evan Hlotta,thank you so much for having me.
It's been amazing and I look forwardto doing it again and thank you for
the kind words to really appreciate itonce again. Meaghan Lanham, founder and
CEO of Rhythm. You can findMegan on socials at a Megan Underscore Lanham
l A n h a M andRhythm dot com that is two ms.
(34:22):
Rhythm dot com
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