March 17, 2024 • 58 mins
On today’s program, Joe and Kim, talk to state senator Nick Collins about the St. Patrick’s Day breakfast and the St. Patrick’s Day parade. NCAA March madness gets underway this week, Joe and Kim talk to James Santore, chief, marketing officer, for the RITHMM sports betting app, which makes you better at betting. Anthony Lamacchia of Lamacchia Realty talks about President Biden‘s housing proposals unveiled in his state of the union speech. Greg, Ryan, senior reporter for the Boston business journal talks about plans to straighten out the Mass Pike in Allston. And serial entrepreneur Paul English joins us to talk about the LOLA dating app which is now online in Boston.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
This is the New England Business Reportwith Joe short Sleeve and Kim Carrigan,
a weekly round up and discussion ofthe top business news impacting our New England
economy. Good morning, everybody,and welcome to the New England Business Report.
On this Saint Patrick's Day, Marchthe seventh, were in my grain.
You were I see you. Ididn't have to pinch you. Not
yet. Anyway, I'm kid carryingalong with Joe short Sleeve. I'm excited
(00:23):
about today's show. Oh yeah,no, We've got a lot to talk
about. And you know Saint Patrick'sDay in Boston and it's actually, you
know St Patrick's Day on the dayof the parade, and that's not always
the case. But so you know, this parade goes back to nineteen oh
one. I now, first onein the country, by the way.
It was the first one. Notthe biggest now, but it was the
first one then. And I say, Patrick Day goes back to seventeen thirty
(00:45):
seven. Oh my goodness, Grace, I thank you. I think I
was around for that. No,you were not. N Hey, can
I tell you something really clear aboutthis cool wallet Hub did a survey.
They looked at all different kinds ofthings related to Saint Patrick's Day. And
Boss is the number one place inAmerica to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. That's
over Chicago and New York. Butdon't tell I always say Chicago beats us
(01:07):
out because they turned their river green. But no, how could that possibly
be the case? And Dary totry to find a parking spot right now
in South Boston. Absolutely, well, we're very excited. And Senator Nick
Collins, who this morning is hostingthe Saint Patrick's Day Breakfast, He's going
to join us in just a coupleof minutes. But Joe, let's take
a look at some of the otherthings we're doing today. I bet a
(01:30):
lot of our listeners are getting readyfor March Madness, which begins this week.
And if you're like so many people, you're filling out a bracket and
you're hoping that you're going to bethe office winner right of the pool,
Well, we are going to introduceyou to a company that just might be
able to help you fill out thosebrackets. Rhythm is a local company.
They are a sports betting analytics companyand they with you know, with the
(01:56):
help of some computers and some reallysmart folks over there and come up with
exactly who if you look at themstatistically, could possibly be go to them
before you make your bet. Thankyou for their best odds here. But
I'm sitting here going how does AIhelp with these upsets that happen, you
know, with the number sixteen beatingthe number two? I mean, I
just wonder where AI plays in AndI guess he'll reveal that for And let's
(02:19):
are always your betting your betting alsothis week and ask the realtor CEO of
Lamachia Realty, Anthony Lamachia will behere and he's going to answer the questions
concerning the President and he during hisState of the Union address, he talked
a lot about housing being an issuein this country and how to make housing
(02:40):
more abundant and more affordable for workingfamilies. Well, what does this mean
to the real estate industry? AnthonyLamacky is going to answer some of the
questions that we're going to pose aboutthat speech. Yeah, and the President
in that speech, you know,made a somewhat of a controversial proposal as
it relates to real estate investors,suggesting that when they sell a property,
(03:01):
they have to pay tax on theirgain as opposed to right now, you
don't. You can reinvest it inanother property. But now they're trying to
create this pool of money to helpwith the housing situation. So there are
some real estate investors out there thataren't exactly pleased this morning. But this
is not a reality yet. It'san idea. I think that's also what
Anthony's going to remind everyone. Youknow, this is not a reality.
(03:23):
This is just what the president isproposing in an election year. All right,
you know it's Saint Patrick's Day inBoston, and our next guest,
well, he knows a thing ortwo about South Boston and the parade and
the breakfast. Who is he?Well, he's State Senator Nick Collins,
and he was born and raised inSouth Boston. He's been up on Beacon
(03:45):
Hill since twenty eleven, and he'sbeen hosting the Saint Patrick's Day breakfast since
two thousand and nineteen. Senator,thank you for joining us. The breakfast
is just getting underway. Give usan idea. We're a business program.
How important is this breakfast? AndI know I happen to love it,
but how important this breakfast is tothe business community. Well, Happy Saint
Pat's Day. And happy evacuation todayto you. It's a wonderful time in
(04:09):
Boston as we turn on the corneron our seasons, it's a great time
to be out and to really breakout of the winter mold. And what
it means to small businesses. Ithink we can see that on our main
Street and particularly here in South Boston, across the city in our restaurants,
and I think that's really been abright spot this season. We really want
(04:30):
to continue to see restaurants rebound afterthe pandemic, and you know, it's
a tough business, but I thinkyou know, what this event does is
bring people together, brings people tothe city, brings people to South Boston.
It's actually the largest public event inBoston. Many people think it's the
marathon, but obviously it stretches fromBoston to Hopington, so it's spreads out.
(04:51):
So it's an incredible time of yearfor people to come together celebrate our
American revolutionary and immigrant story here inthe city. And we love to be
the host here in South Boston.So Senator, as Joe just mentioned,
you know you grew up there inSouth Boston. Now here you are since
twenty nineteen the host of the SaintPatrick's Day Breakfast, something I'm sure that
(05:15):
you watched for a long time asa young man. What does it mean
to you to be the host andtalk to us a little bit more about
the tradition of this breakfast. Sure, No, it's an honor to be
a host of this. You know, I'm a custodian of sorts, as
a lot of people have come beforeme. It's been ongoing for seventy years,
(05:38):
and I think it's a testament tothe commitment in the community to holding
up tradition, particularly you know,in a changing time. We've sort of
modified things. We're operating on multipleplatforms. You know, there's a live
audience, but also we're operating ondifferent platforms with radio, TV and online,
(06:02):
so we're bringing it to a larderaudience. And I think, you
know, given the mobility and andand you know sort of the reach.
You know, it's the largest populationin the city according to the Boston Redevelopment
Authority, the Irish American community andacross the state of Massachusetts, in New
England and Massachusetts has you know,some of the highest percentages. So it's
(06:25):
a really you know, historically speaking, it continues to maintain the interests of
both my colleagues and government, thefilm thropper community, the the the cultural
community, and I think it's gotstaying power and we're we're happy to have
(06:45):
it back at the Ironworkers Hall thisyear in South Bostin talking with State Senator
Nick Collins, he of course isthe man in the spotlight this Saint Patrick's
day in Boston. A senator,Come on, you know, I know
I wonder who works on your jokes, who's working on that and and can
you can you share with us alittle bit of uh, you know,
the prepared material today and I knowyou guys always have a surprise up your
sleeve as well. Yeah, soyou know with the Avenue AI, they
(07:10):
could we we're gonna be able to, uh touch on some areas that we
may not be able to. Soit's gonna I think we're gonna use a
bit of that for some fun andhumor, always using uh, the Irish
tradition of music to help, youknow, with some parodies. I think
it's for me, you know,I having a speech impediment grown up and
(07:32):
I've forgotten all of that. Butthe singing is actually a little bit easier
to pull off and the direct standup comedy. There is there is a
lot of pressure. But you know, as long as I think people are
feeling like they're taking it in goodstride and everyone's you know, in the
in the spirit of the day.You know, people get a chance to
see their elected officials in a selfdeprecating manner. I think that's that's a
(07:58):
positive thing. What I what Iwhat I am wanting my uh my fellow
guests, speakers. It's because weknow some things that happened in the past,
and you've got to be you haveto basically be careful that you're you
know, stride in the line ofof funny and witty, but not you
know, into the politically correct ortoo controversial. You know, politically correct
(08:22):
would that apply? No, Ijust think you know what I'd like to
tell people if they're not you know, aim in small missiness small is you
have the right to remain silent.Anything you say could use against the war.
I say, yeah, this breakfastand for that matter, at the
parade. It is not gone withoutcontroversy in the past, Senator No.
(08:43):
And I think it's it's about abunch of different things, but at its
core, this is what we maintainedabout the events, both events that it
is a celebration of our First Amendmentsrights, freedom to gather, freedom of
religion in many ways, freedom ofyou know, South Boston had the first
UH Catholic worship and place of burialin New England, and obviously at the
(09:05):
time, you know, there wasa lot of strife with the Irish community
and the Ours Catholic community. Youknow, we obviously hear about the the
infamous line of no Irish need apply. UH. So we're we're we're dealing
with all of that. But it'sthe celebration of our First Amendment rights and
those who help protect that. Sowe we also pay homage to our US
(09:28):
forces. Were dedicating the breakfast thisyear to UH the Boston Police Officer PRIs
Norton, who should come to UHconditions on the job. And we'll also
be welcome the USS Truction, whichis a naval vessel that's going to be
here, and the commander, ourcommander the Smith will be joining us as
(09:48):
well. So well, we havegreat lineup from US Senator Warren, Governor
Healy, Mayor WU Congressman Lynch.We have a great group of colleagues that
are joining us, and we'll befilled with music, fun and laughter,
and we hope people will tune in. Senator Nick Collins is our guests,
and the parade steps off at oneo'clock today. You grew up in South
(10:09):
How important is the parade to thatlocal business community. Oh, it's incredibly
important and we we we you know, putting the breakfast together. We work
with all local businesses and vendors,so we try to you know, prioritize
that. But no, it's incredible. Just think about you get a million
plus people that are going to beconsumers on the streets of Boston and South
(10:31):
Boston that are that are coming infor the weekend and sometimes longer than that.
So you know, the the benefitwe see it in the in the
in the meal taxes, and Ithink that's sort of an objective data point
that we can point to that showsthe really the economic benefits to the celebration.
Well, Senator, it's been funtalking to you, and I hope
(10:52):
you have a great day. Butnext time we get you on we're going
to talk about Beacon Hill. Okay, absolutely looking forward to it. Have
a happy Saint Patrick's Day and EvacuationDay. Hope to see everyone else the
prease happy Saint Patrick's day to you. Senator Nick Collins, all right,
Joe, still coming up. MarchMadness starts this week. You I remember
last year we had our brackets,and you know, if I could get
(11:16):
some help with a bracket, youknow, I think I you know,
I would go there. Tell usabout this company, Rhythm Rhythm. We
have a representative from Rhythm coming upnext. And there are sports analytics betting
company, so maybe maybe we canget some tips. Yeah, and maybe
we can be winners. Finally,the thin thing about Rhythm is they actually
track the advice they give. Inother words, they say, okay,
bet this way, bet this way, and they track their own recommendations.
(11:39):
You mean, they take responsibilasure whatthey might You're listening to New England Business
Report. You are listening to theNew England Business Report on the Voice of
Boston w RKO six't eighty.Joe and Kim will be right back.
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Leader Bank, Modern Banking with apersonal touch. Welcome back, everybody you
know. This week the NCAA MarchMadness Tournament gets underway. Oh no,
oh yeah, yeah, you know. It's sixty seven games in total.
Course, it culminates after two weeksin the National Championship, and our next
(14:54):
guest works for our company that justmight be able to help you fill out
the those brackets. Rhythm, thankyou, I need help. Rhythm is
a sports betting analytic company. It'sbased here in Boston and we are joined
this morning by James Santaur. Heis the chief marketing officer for Rhythm.
Great to have you along. Thankyou for having me. Guys, really
(15:16):
appreciate it. You bet hey,talk to us about Rhythm before we get
into all the details about how you'regoing to help us win our office pools.
Tell us about Rhythm. Yeah,absolutely, Well, Happy March,
Dannis, by the way, wherethis is an awesome time of year.
It's you know, for all ofus that are working in the business world
or wherever your jobs are, beingable to have some sports all throughout the
day, it's just the best dealingever. So we're here to help make
(15:39):
that even better. So Rhythm basicallytakes all the complex data and all the
data that's out there for your favoritesports and makes it really easy to use
to become a better, better ordaily fantasy user and in this case for
brackets as well. So our teamsall from MIT they decided, Hey,
we're learning about these different financial modelsand how they're applied and you know in
the financial world, and we wantto take that and help sport betters,
(16:00):
in supports fans have a better experience, so able to take all that complexity
and then really make it a reallyeasy to use and fun to use app,
which is Rhythm. So we've beenlive really for a full marketing launch
since January and we started to reallycatch some traction and people are winning a
lot of money using us and justreally enjoying it. Yeah, transparency to
an industry that for a long timewas people sitting behind you know, Discord
(16:25):
channels, Twitter accounts or your traditionalbookies. So adding a layer of data
and responsible gaming to this, butreally just adding utility and helping people.
One more James, if you couldtalk us through this a little bit.
I'm a little bit confused on aRhythm as it relates to Okay, you've
got this app, I go there. You basically teach me or tell me
(16:45):
you know, Okay, this isyour best bet, this is how you
should bet on this next game orthis or whatever. But am I betting
on your app as well? Oram I just using it for research and
then hopping off? Sure? Greatquestion. So We are agnostic this book,
and the big reason is it isnot fun to be dealing with the
regulatory issues on the sports books.So we were like, you know what,
(17:06):
We're gonna be the tool to drivepeople to other sports books. So
that's basically what we do. Soif you're betting on driskings or standal whatever
it is, basically you use Rhythmto help figure out what picks you should
be using. So what Rhythm does, though, is it takes all the
data that's available, and there's multipleways to go about actually like driving that
data. So if you're somebody thatjust wants to be quick and easy,
but the way I always call ita Buffalo Wild Wings button, Like,
(17:27):
if you're sitting at a bar,you're sitting with all your friends and there's
multiple games on TV that you aren'tyou know, a fan of, or
you don't know enough about to makea really educated bet, then you can
press a button and Rhythm will giveyou all the recommended bets for every single
game across college basketball or MBA andNBA player props as well. And then
if you're somebody that's really really analytical, you can take the ability to make
(17:48):
your own custom models which is somethingthat usually was a reserve for data scientists
or people that had the time orthe money to go pay for for data
seats and manually spreadsheet sosically allows peopleto create custom models. But you can
either use it doing AI or youcan do it using in the custom modeling.
But in reality, we give youa menu recommend it bets all based
(18:11):
off of data in three years ofhistorical data to make it really easy for
you to go find what you wantto bet on and against make that a
more lucrative opportunity to well yeah,but James, you own it too.
You own your recommendations, right itwill I'm another word, so I can
go back and say, oh,Rhythm told me to do this right?
Oh yeah, So in the appwe want to make it so against.
Transparency is a big piece of this, right, Like we want it to
(18:33):
make sure that you can follow yourbets and understand where you're becoming a better
better Is your model good at moneylinebets or spread bets? And you can
kind of start to see where yourmodel's good at. And that's again like
understanding where you're the same way again, if you're looking at stocks, I
guess you see this is a certainmarket or industry that you're having success with.
You have a good eye for that, maybe you should keep investing there.
(18:55):
With sports betting. If your modelsare really good at finding great spread
bets, keep that in. That'sread on that model. So we're allowing
people to track within the app,allowing people to understand again more of that
historical aspect of what they're doing,and then again helping them find their next
bets and again just make it oncethey get past the is this model working,
it's like, oh man, I'mgoing to go dominate this and start
(19:15):
winning a lot of money. SoJames, because of that right there,
how did the draft kings of theworld feel about you guys? So it's
it's a question we get asked allthe time, and the best my favorite
thing to say is we're actually don'tuse rhythm. Is that what they're saying,
They're going to kill us the bestpart? No, that's the best
(19:36):
part. They you would think that, right because at the surface, we're
trying to help people win more.But sports books most of their money's not
made in sports betting. Most oftheir money's made in ice, you know,
and other products that they have.So we're driving users to their apps.
We drive retention because people are goingto bet more different games, spend
more time on the sports books,and the big piece of it is that
we also draw people to then convertto become on because you know, users
(20:00):
or use other aspects of the app, which then drives more revenue for the
sportsbooks. So in reality, youknow, look, we don't guarantee that
every single person is going to startwinning you know, eighty percent of their
bets, but the people that know, what do you guarantee? Yeah with
the we don't. We can't guaranteeanything. But our models have been hitting
at again, over a sixty percentrate every single sports over two percent ROI.
(20:22):
So again, those are the AIaspects. Now there's the human error
part right where people can pay differentrecommendations or either agree or disagree with the
recommendations. So we have those baselines. Again. Yes, these models are
working. They're all again where likethe professional gamblers, the ones who tout
their success, we're all in linewith again where their metrics are. So
once again we're still pretty new inthe sense that we only have you know,
(20:45):
a month and a half worth ofdata for our general users. But
the early data of what we're seeingis phenomenal. And again, the people
that have used this and really understandhow they're using Rhythm as part of their
routine, now they've started to justI mean again, we love seeing people
tweet us or send in big winsor their unit side. We have one
guy who's up like ninety units lastmonth, wow, which is crazy,
(21:06):
and everybody's unit size is different,but that's something where again his player props,
like he was using player props asa way of Hey, I found
out where I'm constantly having success.Now I'm going to absolutely take advantage of
this. If you certainly did inhis bank account stuffs thankful for it.
So tell us about you, say, you know you really will live in
January? We know you have obviouslyMarch madness. You just mentioned the NBA.
(21:30):
What are the other sports that Ican go to Rhythm and learn some
analytics? Sure, yeah, soI obviously no more NFL or college football
right now, but those are thetwo original sports. We had another really
exciting sport that's I think believes startsin May, but is the WNBA.
Now, WNBA is a great sportto bet on it. Most people don't
realize that because the lines are notas sharp as the NBA or the NFL.
(21:53):
So rhythm really helps you find thoseinefficiencies without you having to do anything.
And it's also a great way toWe had people that started betting the
WNBA last year. Not only didthey win a ton of money, but
they actually started to become like fansof the teams. We had a guy
that became a Connecticut Sun fan literallyball to Jersey and went to games because
of he just started betting on themand winning with them all the time on
rhythm. So that's a really coolone. And again it's driving people to
(22:15):
games that otherwise like they made LikeI'm a Sixers fan, Like if I
was to watch you know, I'mnot going and watching random teams games on
the night basis, But because rhythmstelling me to go bet on something,
I'd be more prone to do that. So that's been a pretty cool aspect
of it. So WNBA is goingto be great. We have NBA,
which we have game picks and playerprops, and then college basketball we have
game picks, and then we're comingout with golf in April, which will
(22:37):
be awesome. So we'll have thatin time for the Masters. Well,
we'll be able to help you driveall the best bets on every big golf
event, which golf betting is somethingthat's really really taking off in recent years.
And most exciting is that today actuallywe are releasing our marsh Bands Bracket
Generator. So what you can do, and this is free to anybody,
but you can literally just go andtap a button and get a data backs
(23:00):
bracket that you can use for allyour pools. Well, how do you
take into account that sweet sixteen,that's sixteen that beats the one? How
does AI do that? Well,I'll tell you what. They're always anomalies,
right, But that's the that's thething. It's like our data takes
into account play styles and historical youknow, like historical games. So if
they played a team that played let'ssay it's like a Houston versus I went
(23:22):
to Lasal. Lasal unfortunately lost byone yesterday, so I'm going to use
them as an example. But besad as I'm saying it. But let's
say Lasal made it to made itas a sixteen seed. If Lasal had
beaten teams that had a play stylelike a Houston or like a Kentucky.
Then it would showcase that and say, well they played five play styles like
this team, they lost by amargin of three each game they lasal as
(23:45):
a fifteen or a thirty percent chanceof winning because of like previous games.
Like that's none of the none ofthat data that I just explained you'd have
to do, But that's what's happeningon the back end that gives you recommendations.
So we've seen a ton of peoplehave success on underdogs all year.
We have it's a filter that youcan do. But like, let's I
mean, we do that every day. We have a dog of the day,
(24:06):
we give it on social media andit hits. It hits frequently.
I knew we've had some plus threefifty hits. We had a plus five
fifty hit. And that's something thatthe community just loves to talk because what
about what about the prop bets andthe color of the gatorade stuff like that,
Well they don't do that, right, you guys don't do that,
and we can't bet on that inMassachusetts anyway. Hey, James, we're
about out of time here. We'regoing to have to run, But I
(24:27):
want to ask you very quickly,you know, what does this cost me
as a better So for the bracketgenerator, completely free. Anybody can go
to Rhythm and download that and geta bracket sense to their email or to
the app. And then if youwant to use Rhythm for your March fand
this's betting too and all your NBAbetting, you have a free seven day
trial. So especially if you startthat at the beginning of March Madness,
(24:48):
could be a great way to learnhow to use the app and really make
some money during the tournament. Andthat it's thirty dollars a month to the
core subscription and for those really advanceddata people like that's our one hundred dollars
premium subscription. But we like tothink we have an option for everybody.
And again, it's been really coolto see the response we've gotten from the
community so far. James Ntour,thanks so very much for joining us.
And again, everybody, it's Rhythmand you spell that r h m M
(25:11):
that's how I spell it. That'sfun. That is fun, I mean,
And like you said, there's freefor a while, but that changes
to us subscription basis. But thatmakes perfect sense if you're making money off
them, absolutely all right, stillcome in your way, folks, it's
ask the realtor. I'm Kim carryingalong with Joe Schwartzleeve and you are listening
(25:32):
to New England Business Report. Onthis Saint Patti's Day. Kim and Joe
will explore more business news that impactsour New England economy when they return.
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(28:08):
Day in Boston. You're listening tothe New England Business Report. Joke Schartzleeve
here along with Kim Kerrigan. We'rein the green today. We've got a
lot to talk about. But Kimand I in this part of the program,
what we like to do is welike to pick out a couple of
other stories that are out there thatreally caught our attention this week. And
this survey, Kim, this surveyabout was released on this past Monday by
(28:32):
the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Foundationfound that alarming one in four young people
plan to leave Greater Boston in thenext five years. I mean, this
is something we were talking about onour Bloomberg program a couple of years ago,
this outward migration. But this,this survey, you know, has
got to have them shaken in theirboats absolutely well. If you remember earlier,
(28:53):
you know, as in one ofour very first broadcasts here on New
England Business, we talked to JohnCesto about the idea that outward migration maybe
wasn't as bad as originally thought,but this goes against that idea. Yeah,
I mean, and these are youngpeople. These are ages twenty to
thirty, some one and four planto leave and it all comes back to
(29:17):
the high cost of rent. Itcomes back with the ability to buy a
home. So and the commute aswell. This generation is just sort of
not buying the fact that they're goingto sit in the pike for hours ago.
That generation and mine, by theway, also another just business story
quickly today El Street tavern this monthchanging hands right here in St. Patrick's
(29:37):
day. There's going to be anew local owner. But that's a you
know, obviously made famous by thatBen Affleck film Good Will Hunting, but
that far changing hands this month.It's time for our weekly feature Ask the
Real Term, and we are joinedby the founder and CEO of Lamachia Realty,
Anthony Lamachia. Good morning, sir, Good morning, great to have
(30:00):
you with us. Like always,he President Biden delivering his State of the
Union address last week, and duringthe course of that address, he talked
about some proposals that he's putting forwardto increase the abundance and to lower the
cost of housing for working families.There's a whole bunch of things that he
talked about, but I thought we'dask you what stood out the most to
(30:22):
people in your community. Well,we had a lot of buyers asking,
you know, oh, there's amortgage credit now, and it's like,
well, hang on. The Presidentdid what every president does from every side
of the aisle and talked about proposals. It doesn't mean any of it has
passed. And if you go onthe White House website or web page with
respect to the State of the Union, it's very clear that President Biden is
(30:48):
calling on Congress to pass mortgage relief. Then you scroll down more down payment
assistant assistance for first generation homeowners.The President continues to call on Congress to
provide up to twenty five thousand indownteam and assistance. Much of what he
talked about are things that he's callingon Congress to do. Some of it
I'm sure they have genuine hopes todo, and some of it i'm sure,
(31:10):
like any president is talking points tosound good or leading up to an
election. All right, answer,There's another one point that he made,
and it is this idea of requiringreal estate investors to pay taxes when they
sell real estate, even if theyreinvest the proceeds in other real estate.
Well, I'm curious about that interms of who's a real estate investor.
(31:34):
Well, it's a horrible idea,and he's been talking about that since he
first became president, and that isessentially to eliminate or substantially restrict the ten
thirty one like kind exchange. Soright now, and I'm going to speak
in broad general terms for the accountantslistening. Don't call in and say,
oh, Anthony misspoke on one littlepart. Right now, you own an
(31:56):
investment property for a certain amount ofyears, you can sell that property,
take the proceeds, buy something elsewith those proceeds. Usually it has to
be within forty five days, andyou can roll the proceeds right into the
next purchase. Okay, he's saying, Nope, the investors should have to
pay taxes on that and shouldn't beable to roll all that money into the
next property. I disagree with him. This is something that has been in
(32:19):
place for decades and what it doesis it motivates investors to sell properties,
buy bigger ones, do substantial renovationswhen they buy properties. So I'm very
very much against any talk of eliminatingthe ten thirty one exchange. And I
think that's just an example of howlawmakers, in this case the president,
but I've seen it with governors.We've seen it all over the place.
(32:43):
They think they come up with brightideas, but they don't realize how much
it'll hurt on the ground. Solet's talk about the proposals that came about
that you'd like to see get throughsomething that is good for the consumer and
good for the industry as a whole. Well, I like hearing them talk
about down payment assistance, and recentlyI've been debating on this kind of thing
(33:06):
with our industry is in some legalturmoil from some plaintiff's attorneys who are out
to money grab and one of thethings they've been saying is, well,
down payment assistants should be used topay realtort. Well, that's not true.
It's not paid for that. Itdoesn't allow that. But when you
look into down payment assistance, ithas a lot of restrictions. It sounds
good at the surface, and itnever works out quite the way that it
(33:28):
should. For example, what happensis oftentimes the regulations with the down payment
assistants say things like, well,you can get a fifteen thousand dollars grant
if you buy a property in GreaterBoston, but it's only if your incomes
less and I'm making up numbers,but one hundred and forty thousand, well,
if they're under one hundred and fortythousand, they're probably not buying in
(33:49):
Greater Boston. So often the twocollides. So I did like hearing him
talk about the twenty five thousand dollarsin down payment assistance. Now they said
to first generation home buyers whose familieshaven't benefited from generational wellness and that so
they're very much targeting obviously immigrants cominginto the country, which hey, great,
(34:09):
you know, great to help them, but I wish they would broaden
it a little. But I willtell you I was happy to hear him
mention down payment assistance because that's thebiggest hurdle to home ownership, and it
is the reason that the average agefor a first time buyer nowadays is thirty
five. Kim. When I firstmet you years ago, the average age
(34:30):
was about twenty eight. That wasonly what twelve thirteen years and I think
we were both twenty eight, weren'twe. Yeah, Hey, I'm still
twenty eight, all right, saidKim. You're looking twenty nine at least.
Yeah, but think about that,the average age has gone up to
thirty five. Now. I hopefullysee that improved when rates come back down
in the next couple of years.But I don't know, because the inventory,
(34:51):
as we've talked about for several weeks, is strangulated and is propping and
pushing prices, so we shall see. I'm happy, generally to hear the
President talking about housing and to acknowledgethat there is a true housing recession going
on right now in sales. Obviouslynot in prices. Prices on collapsing,
but there is a substantial slowdown insales. Anthony Lamachia, like always,
(35:15):
thanks so very much. I havea great rest of the weekend. Thank
you, my friends, have agood one. Bybye. All right.
Well, if you commute on themass Pike into Boston, you're gonna want
to just listen up here. There'sthis whole plan to straighten the mass Pike
(35:35):
in the Alston area of Boston.You've heard about it, right, So
now there's been this big money grab, so to speak, the federal government
has awarded Massachusetts and the City ofBoston some three hundred and thirty five million
dollars to straighten I ninety and Austin, a project that would create, according
to Greg Ryan, a Boston BusinessJournal senior reporter, would create a west
(35:57):
station for public transit and unlocked dozensof acres of riverside property for Harvard University
to develop. Greg joins us nowon the line, So Greg tell us,
tell us about this project and thelikelihood of it going forward. Yeah,
So this has been in the worksnow for over a decade. There've
been debates about how exactly the pikeshould should be realigned and the effects that
(36:19):
would have on the neighborhood and theriver. But a couple of years ago
the state came through with the solutionthey wanted to pursue, and now they
have this federal money. So thisis three hundred and thirty five million dollars
that's for that goes toward an estimatedone point nine billion dollar cost. You
know, they do have some otherfunding line up that you know, the
city and Harvard and BU have pooledtogether or committed about three hundred million dollars,
(36:45):
but that leaves more than a million, more than a billion dollars for
the state to pick up. Andso it's it's an open you know,
the state has aggressively pursued this project, but it's an open question about where
the state is going to find thatmoney. Yeah, So where are some
of the proposed spots they may findthat money. Yeah, so state officials
last year if a few options.One would be about with the bonds and
(37:09):
loans. They came out and saidwe could do almost five hundred million dollars
in bonds and loans, another twohundred million dollars in highway tolls, and
then four hundred and fifty million dollarsfrom the millionaires tacks. Now, that
doesn't get you all the way tothe one point nine million dollars. It
does give you most of the way. But just take the millionaire's tack for
instance. That's something that the legislaturewould have to approve, and there's a
(37:32):
lot of competing priorities when it comesto how to use that money. That's
what they've outlined so far. GregRyan, senior reporter of Boston Business Journals.
Our guest, all right, Greg, what about the commuter? What
about the folks on the Pike duringthis construction period. What does this project
do to them? Yes, therewere there would certain I would. I
(37:52):
don't think they've leigh out exactly whatthe delays would be or which lanes would
be shut down. I mean,this is something you know, even with
this federal funding that is years awayfrom becoming reality. I certainly think there
would be an effect there, Iguess on the positive side, and this
is something that the backers really pointto, is the increased rail transit.
(38:15):
So you'd get the commuter rail linefrom Worcester would be stopping at this new
West station. There's been a lotof talk about connecting this West station over
into Cambridge and Kendall Square so thatit opens up that area to commuters.
But in the meantime, yeah,I think it's safe to say there will
be some head exert. Basically,forget it. It sounds like a good
(38:37):
idea until that you start thinking aboutthat. He let's change gears just a
little bit this week. This pastweek, there was an editorial in the
Boston Business Journal about public record lawsand how beneficial those can be to businesses.
To talk a little bit about,you know, why they're beneficial and
some of the things that the BostonBusiness Journal has found. Yeah, so
(39:00):
this is Sunshine Week to reference to, you know, government transparency and how
important that is to the press andand so yeah, my my editors are
an editorial on the subject. Youknow, it's huge Massachusetts for all it's
you know, progressive reputation, it'sreally one of the worst states. It's
regularly ranked one of the worst stateswhen it comes to h you know,
(39:22):
public transparency and you know feyer,you know, accessibility, that's Freedom of
Information Act, public records requests,and these are hugely important. I mean,
I'm just looking at my own reporting. You know, I've reported as
a real estate reporter. I've reporteda lot. I'm building values downtown.
I was able to get the applicationsthat that have been made so far for
(39:46):
the for Mayor wose office to residentialprogram. That's a taxing center program for
office buildings being switched over to apartments. So you know that just take that
story alone, I mean, thatgives a sense of how well this and
is working. You know, howmany applicants forgetting you know, to what
degree this is really going to helpsolve the issues that downtown is having,
(40:07):
you know, without public records requests. You know, it's totally up to
you know, the government whether theywant to make this information available when they
want to make the information available.So it really helps the public understand what's
going on of it. Well,Greg is an editorial like this, So
folks at the BBJ are hoping thatthis will move the needle up on Beacon
Hill in terms of, you know, making this easier to get the information
(40:30):
we want moving forward. I thinkso. Yeah. The state legislature,
I want to say, you know, is mid twenty tens. I think
they did update the law. Itdid make some modesty improvements, but the
state's still you know, regularly rankedtowards the bottom when it comes to government
(40:50):
transparency and requests like this. Soyeah, there is plenty of room for
improvements in that area. All right, Well, we'll keep Erye on it.
He's Greg Ryan. He is thesenior reporter there with the Boston Business
Journal. Of course, the BBJis one of our partners here on this
new program. Here the New EnglandBusiness Report. Up next, Kim,
we get to talk about well,I guess it's it's love in the air.
(41:12):
I mean, oh, there wego just a month later. Yeah,
we're talking about dating and a newdating app by the name of Lola
dot com and it is the workof a serial entrepreneur, Paul English.
That's up next. You are listeningto the New England Business Report on the
Voice of Boston WRKO six't eightyJoe and Kim will be right back.
(41:38):
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Hi, everybody, I'm Kim Kerriganand I'm Joe Shortsley. If you
(43:44):
want to be part of the NewEngland Business Report. Sponsorships are still available.
You can email us at Any BusinessRadio at gmail dot com. That's
Any Business Radio all one word atgmail dot com and we'll get your business
on the show too. The NewEngland Business Report on w RKO is brought
(44:10):
to you in part by Suparo ofNew England. Feel the freedom of a
brand new twenty twenty four Subaru featuringsymmetrical all wheel drive. Suparov New England
dot com. Our next guest isWell, he's a local kid. He's
from West Roxbury and his dream oneday would be to own a car wash.
(44:32):
And instead of that, though,Paul English and a co founder went
out and founded the app Kayak intwo thousand and four. Well, they
sold that in twenty twelve for twobillion dollars. Today Paul has his fingers
in all kinds of pies and oneof them is a new dating app and
it's it's starting out here right herein the city of Boston, is known
(44:55):
as Lola la dot com and Pauljoins us. Now welcome the program.
Fall It's great to talk to bothof you. All right, tell us
about this Lola dating app. Yeah, we just released it and It's different
from every other dating app in twoways. The first way is the first
time you run Lola, it says, lolos of people want to go out
(45:16):
this week? What night do youwant to go out? Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday. We show youthe next five nights. If you're
not ready to go out and youclick a little button and say not ready,
we say lolos of people want togo out this week. If you
just want to chat, we highlyrecommend hinder Bumble. Those are great ass
for chatting, which a little bitof a you know, push to them.
But once you pick a night,let's say you say Tuesday night,
(45:39):
We then match you only with peoplewho also want to go out on Tuesday
nights. We're kind of, youknow, cut to the chase and not
have people talk end to sleep forweeks, but basically, take a risk
and meet go meet someone, andthat person you meet might be the love
of your life. You know.We just want you to get out there.
So that's the basic idea. Thesecond thing we do is, let's
(46:00):
say you meet with Rachel on Tuesdaynight. On Wednesday morning, we message
you and we say, did yougo out with Rachel last night? Yes?
And no, how would you rateyour experience one to five? And
which of these positive and negative attributesto associate with the date. We never
share this information with tell anyone whatyou said, and we don't publish ratings.
(46:22):
However, we do use this fortwo reasons. One is to one
is to feed it into machine learningso that we can provide you better and
better matches. And the second one, frankly, is if we find people
that are rated a one out offive and then rated one out of five
(46:43):
for a certain reason, like someonemarxim is unsafe, we give them a
lifetime ban off the app. Now, Paul English is our guest, And
Paul, you didn't choose the nameRachel just by happenstance, because Rachel happens
to be your co founder and yourfiance. That's right. And so when
you met on a dating app,not Lola, but another, Yeah,
(47:06):
Races and I met four years agoin New York, and I think she
pitched for the idea for Lula onour second date. So tell me why
you guys thought that another dating appwas an important thing. We would just
talk to people every now and then, We like ask people how they met.
That's a lot of times they hearfunny stories about that. And when
people talk about dating apps, theyjust complain about them. People are unhappy.
(47:30):
And we did a poll last summerof two hundred and fifty people in
Boston about what don't they like aboutdating apps, and the two things they
said loud and clear was that justway too much chatting. You're chatting with
ten people at once, You're chattingwith someone for a week and then they
go tough. They you have noidea why they disappeared, and she's just
like too much work. And thesecond thing is they said, you meet
(47:52):
someone on mine, they seem cool, but you meet him in presson on
like huge lockdown. Either they quoteunquote catfishy, which means they use a
photo which looks nothing like what theyactually look like, or are they're just
like not a good person, andwe intend to fill to those seeple out
well, Paul, Okay, listeningto how this works. If I'm new
to Lola and I'm just popping onand then I say, Okay, I'm
(48:15):
available Tuesday night, boom now,but then I'm out meeting people and you
really haven't screened me that much upto this point. Correct and I mean,
I could be a horrible date.All we we haven't screened you that
much, but we will. Wehave a bunch of questions. We interview
you at the beginning, but wehaven't done a it's just an online review,
(48:37):
but we've we screen you once youstart dating, because then we get
feedback about you. But initially,just like an uber, everyone starts with
a five ozer rating every driver,every passenger. You'll start with a perfect
rating, but then based on peoplegive you feedback, you're rating will change
over time. What's the reaction,Because I know it's new you guys launched
(48:57):
late fall. Some people like,really, are you going to kick off
like that? Guys who said,yes, we are. We're probably going
to be kicking people off. We'vealready kicked people off for inappropriate believe it
or not, inappropriate profiles. Andthen people like it. They like saying,
you know, one of our typesof our users are divorced parents.
(49:20):
And if you have a joint custody, your life is very busy between the
hold on a full time job plusswitting half custody. And many times they'll
be like, all right, I'mfree on Thursday and that's my only night
freak because I have the kids forthe weekend and they just want to say,
I want to have a nice dinneron Thursday. Master me up with
someone and that's what we'll do.Paul English as our guest. He is
(49:42):
the founder of the dating app Lola. He's a local kid from West Roxbury.
Paul, as you know, we'rea business program, Kim and I
the New England Business Report. Takeus inside the business decision here if you
could share with us. Okay,so what am I paying to be part
of? What's what's financial success foryou? And this operation moving forward?
(50:05):
Take us inside some of the businessaspects. Yeah. So the two metrics
that we're going to focus on overthe next couple of months because we have
in theory we think we know howthe business model is going to evolve,
but we're not going to know ituntil we start charging. We haven't started
charging yet. And the two thingsin any tech consumer is you need to
know it's called CAC and LTV CACis cost of acquisition. How much does
(50:30):
it costs us in advertising to getsomeone to see an ad for low and
say it sounds really cool, toget them to download the app and Downalod
app and set up an account.And the second one is called LTV or
lifetime value, and that is ifsomeone's paying us and we haven't find less
of pricing yet, Let's say it'stwenty dollars a month on average. We
(50:52):
understand from other people in the industrythat people staying dating ups for about six
months, So that's about one hundredand twenty dollars life time value for that
customer. And as long as it'sa big ratio that it costs us a
lot less than that to get someout of the platform, then you ended
up making a very profitable business.And talk about if you will, Paul,
(51:13):
the name Lola, that has beensomething that's been with you for a
while. You love that name.Yeah, I mean, there's a funny
backstory. When we created Kayak,we incorporated the company as Travel Starch Company,
Inc. We didn't really have aname and we wanted to have a
great name, so we hired abrand aid in say New York, my
co founder and I and we wouldgo have weekly meetings in New York to
(51:36):
talk about brand asperations and brand identity. We end up coming up with a
list of one hundred words we nowthat downe to five. The five finalist
words what became Kayak Number one wasactually Lola, and back then we called
a deportmanteau for longitude latitude l LA. We tried to buy the name,
we couldn't afford. It was ownedby a defined clothing company by a very
(51:58):
wealthy man. Isn't selling the name, so we went Our second choice is
Kayak, just out of trivia.The third, fourth, and fifth choice
was cake Eat no Cake, Rice, and hives. So those are our
five finals. But now when it'stime to create Lola, I'm like,
now I can afford the name.I'm going to buy the name that I
(52:19):
want, and it stands for lovelanguage exactly in this case. Yeah,
that's great. Paul English is ourGUESTI is the founder of Lola. You're
starting in Boston right now. Giveus a little taste of how it's going.
But beyond that, I guess youhave plans for soon New York City
in Miami. That's right. Yeah, right now, we have about twenty
(52:43):
five hundred profiles on the system.We're waiting till we have about five thousand
before we open it up for livematch, in which we expect to happen
in the next few weeks after welaunch in Boston. New York is next,
which is a much bigger city asyou know, of course, and
then Miami. I think it'll benumber three. So we're going to spread
for us on the East coast andthen we'll take it to the West coast
and then sort of travel in andhave East meat West Paul, There's no
(53:06):
question that dating apps are very popular, But I'd like to ask you why
you think that's the case. It'sjust it's it's really a a system of
numbers. You know, you couldgo out every night and try to go
to either a bar or you likein Seapot in Boston it's a dark place.
(53:30):
There's a put jack mini golf place. But in general you might meet,
you know, five people in anight. In a dating app,
you can go through twenty people,a thirty people, of fifty people and
connect with one who looks interesting toyou. They have a nice profile,
you like the pictures, you're likewhat they say about themselves. They let
(53:51):
goals and you start chatting with them, which is like an incredibly efficient way
to draw a larger pool. Paul. You have folks that fill out a
scorecard. My final question for you. I kind of enjoyed as I was
researching you a little bit some ofthe things that people do wrong on that
first or second date. And Iwas reading that, I want to say,
(54:12):
well, arrogant, drink too muchbad cologne. We got that complain
a lot the positive negative abuse thatwe put into the app, and you
have to select between one and threepositives between zero and three negatives. Those
come directly from our survey. Weserve return for people who said, and
your last date that didn't go well, why didn't you like that person?
(54:34):
And believe it or not? Toostrong a fragrance came up a lot,
So we want to give you thatfeedback because you might wonder why they have
a lot of first dates but nota lot of second dates. And I'm
going to say, hey, buddy, calm down on the cologne. Well,
well, all right, he's aPaul English local kid, and make
good with the Lola. It's nowavailable in Boston. Thank you for joining
us. Paul in the New EnglandBusiness Report. All right, well,
(55:00):
it seems like everything he touches turnsto gold. Yeah, we'll have to
see what happens here with Lola.Never mind the business side of it,
but for the folks who are usingit absolutely well. Joe, that's going
to do it for Saint Patrick's DAPEprogram today. Quick reminder to everybody that
the parade steps off at South Bostonat one o'clock, So if you're driving
(55:21):
in that area, good luck,I suggest you, Joe. But we
do hope everybody has a really greatsafe day. Let's take a look at
what's coming up on New England Businessnext Sunday morning. One of our guests
will be John Hurst. He's thepresident of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts,
along with the CEO of A StreetHospitality. We're going to learn about hospitality
(55:44):
in the city and how it's going. And there's a couple of really cool
openings that are going to happen thisspring, and here we're going to talk
about that. Joe Shorts with KimKerrigan. You've been listening to the New
England Business Support Happy Saint Patty's Day. Everybody can
This is the New England Business Reportwith Joe short Sleeve and Kim Carrigan,
a weekly round up and discussion ofthe top business news impacting our New England
economy. Good morning, everybody,and welcome to the New England Business Report.
On this Saint Patrick's Day, Marchthe seventh, were in my grain.
You were I see you. Ididn't have to pinch you. Not
yet. Anyway, I'm kid carryingalong with Joe short Sleeve. I'm excited
(00:23):
about today's show. Oh yeah,no, We've got a lot to talk
about. And you know Saint Patrick'sDay in Boston and it's actually, you
know St Patrick's Day on the dayof the parade, and that's not always
the case. But so you know, this parade goes back to nineteen oh
one. I now, first onein the country, by the way.
It was the first one. Notthe biggest now, but it was the
first one then. And I say, Patrick Day goes back to seventeen thirty
(00:45):
seven. Oh my goodness, Grace, I thank you. I think I
was around for that. No,you were not. N Hey, can
I tell you something really clear aboutthis cool wallet Hub did a survey.
They looked at all different kinds ofthings related to Saint Patrick's Day. And
Boss is the number one place inAmerica to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. That's
over Chicago and New York. Butdon't tell I always say Chicago beats us
(01:07):
out because they turned their river green. But no, how could that possibly
be the case? And Dary totry to find a parking spot right now
in South Boston. Absolutely, well, we're very excited. And Senator Nick
Collins, who this morning is hostingthe Saint Patrick's Day Breakfast, He's going
to join us in just a coupleof minutes. But Joe, let's take
a look at some of the otherthings we're doing today. I bet a
(01:30):
lot of our listeners are getting readyfor March Madness, which begins this week.
And if you're like so many people, you're filling out a bracket and
you're hoping that you're going to bethe office winner right of the pool,
Well, we are going to introduceyou to a company that just might be
able to help you fill out thosebrackets. Rhythm is a local company.
They are a sports betting analytics companyand they with you know, with the
(01:56):
help of some computers and some reallysmart folks over there and come up with
exactly who if you look at themstatistically, could possibly be go to them
before you make your bet. Thankyou for their best odds here. But
I'm sitting here going how does AIhelp with these upsets that happen, you
know, with the number sixteen beatingthe number two? I mean, I
just wonder where AI plays in AndI guess he'll reveal that for And let's
(02:19):
are always your betting your betting alsothis week and ask the realtor CEO of
Lamachia Realty, Anthony Lamachia will behere and he's going to answer the questions
concerning the President and he during hisState of the Union address, he talked
a lot about housing being an issuein this country and how to make housing
(02:40):
more abundant and more affordable for workingfamilies. Well, what does this mean
to the real estate industry? AnthonyLamacky is going to answer some of the
questions that we're going to pose aboutthat speech. Yeah, and the President
in that speech, you know,made a somewhat of a controversial proposal as
it relates to real estate investors,suggesting that when they sell a property,
(03:01):
they have to pay tax on theirgain as opposed to right now, you
don't. You can reinvest it inanother property. But now they're trying to
create this pool of money to helpwith the housing situation. So there are
some real estate investors out there thataren't exactly pleased this morning. But this
is not a reality yet. It'san idea. I think that's also what
Anthony's going to remind everyone. Youknow, this is not a reality.
(03:23):
This is just what the president isproposing in an election year. All right,
you know it's Saint Patrick's Day inBoston, and our next guest,
well, he knows a thing ortwo about South Boston and the parade and
the breakfast. Who is he?Well, he's State Senator Nick Collins,
and he was born and raised inSouth Boston. He's been up on Beacon
(03:45):
Hill since twenty eleven, and he'sbeen hosting the Saint Patrick's Day breakfast since
two thousand and nineteen. Senator,thank you for joining us. The breakfast
is just getting underway. Give usan idea. We're a business program.
How important is this breakfast? AndI know I happen to love it,
but how important this breakfast is tothe business community. Well, Happy Saint
Pat's Day. And happy evacuation todayto you. It's a wonderful time in
(04:09):
Boston as we turn on the corneron our seasons, it's a great time
to be out and to really breakout of the winter mold. And what
it means to small businesses. Ithink we can see that on our main
Street and particularly here in South Boston, across the city in our restaurants,
and I think that's really been abright spot this season. We really want
(04:30):
to continue to see restaurants rebound afterthe pandemic, and you know, it's
a tough business, but I thinkyou know, what this event does is
bring people together, brings people tothe city, brings people to South Boston.
It's actually the largest public event inBoston. Many people think it's the
marathon, but obviously it stretches fromBoston to Hopington, so it's spreads out.
(04:51):
So it's an incredible time of yearfor people to come together celebrate our
American revolutionary and immigrant story here inthe city. And we love to be
the host here in South Boston.So Senator, as Joe just mentioned,
you know you grew up there inSouth Boston. Now here you are since
twenty nineteen the host of the SaintPatrick's Day Breakfast, something I'm sure that
(05:15):
you watched for a long time asa young man. What does it mean
to you to be the host andtalk to us a little bit more about
the tradition of this breakfast. Sure, No, it's an honor to be
a host of this. You know, I'm a custodian of sorts, as
a lot of people have come beforeme. It's been ongoing for seventy years,
(05:38):
and I think it's a testament tothe commitment in the community to holding
up tradition, particularly you know,in a changing time. We've sort of
modified things. We're operating on multipleplatforms. You know, there's a live
audience, but also we're operating ondifferent platforms with radio, TV and online,
(06:02):
so we're bringing it to a larderaudience. And I think, you
know, given the mobility and andand you know sort of the reach.
You know, it's the largest populationin the city according to the Boston Redevelopment
Authority, the Irish American community andacross the state of Massachusetts, in New
England and Massachusetts has you know,some of the highest percentages. So it's
(06:25):
a really you know, historically speaking, it continues to maintain the interests of
both my colleagues and government, thefilm thropper community, the the the cultural
community, and I think it's gotstaying power and we're we're happy to have
(06:45):
it back at the Ironworkers Hall thisyear in South Bostin talking with State Senator
Nick Collins, he of course isthe man in the spotlight this Saint Patrick's
day in Boston. A senator,Come on, you know, I know
I wonder who works on your jokes, who's working on that and and can
you can you share with us alittle bit of uh, you know,
the prepared material today and I knowyou guys always have a surprise up your
sleeve as well. Yeah, soyou know with the Avenue AI, they
(07:10):
could we we're gonna be able to, uh touch on some areas that we
may not be able to. Soit's gonna I think we're gonna use a
bit of that for some fun andhumor, always using uh, the Irish
tradition of music to help, youknow, with some parodies. I think
it's for me, you know,I having a speech impediment grown up and
(07:32):
I've forgotten all of that. Butthe singing is actually a little bit easier
to pull off and the direct standup comedy. There is there is a
lot of pressure. But you know, as long as I think people are
feeling like they're taking it in goodstride and everyone's you know, in the
in the spirit of the day.You know, people get a chance to
see their elected officials in a selfdeprecating manner. I think that's that's a
(07:58):
positive thing. What I what Iwhat I am wanting my uh my fellow
guests, speakers. It's because weknow some things that happened in the past,
and you've got to be you haveto basically be careful that you're you
know, stride in the line ofof funny and witty, but not you
know, into the politically correct ortoo controversial. You know, politically correct
(08:22):
would that apply? No, Ijust think you know what I'd like to
tell people if they're not you know, aim in small missiness small is you
have the right to remain silent.Anything you say could use against the war.
I say, yeah, this breakfastand for that matter, at the
parade. It is not gone withoutcontroversy in the past, Senator No.
(08:43):
And I think it's it's about abunch of different things, but at its
core, this is what we maintainedabout the events, both events that it
is a celebration of our First Amendmentsrights, freedom to gather, freedom of
religion in many ways, freedom ofyou know, South Boston had the first
UH Catholic worship and place of burialin New England, and obviously at the
(09:05):
time, you know, there wasa lot of strife with the Irish community
and the Ours Catholic community. Youknow, we obviously hear about the the
infamous line of no Irish need apply. UH. So we're we're we're dealing
with all of that. But it'sthe celebration of our First Amendment rights and
those who help protect that. Sowe we also pay homage to our US
(09:28):
forces. Were dedicating the breakfast thisyear to UH the Boston Police Officer PRIs
Norton, who should come to UHconditions on the job. And we'll also
be welcome the USS Truction, whichis a naval vessel that's going to be
here, and the commander, ourcommander the Smith will be joining us as
(09:48):
well. So well, we havegreat lineup from US Senator Warren, Governor
Healy, Mayor WU Congressman Lynch.We have a great group of colleagues that
are joining us, and we'll befilled with music, fun and laughter,
and we hope people will tune in. Senator Nick Collins is our guests,
and the parade steps off at oneo'clock today. You grew up in South
(10:09):
How important is the parade to thatlocal business community. Oh, it's incredibly
important and we we we you know, putting the breakfast together. We work
with all local businesses and vendors,so we try to you know, prioritize
that. But no, it's incredible. Just think about you get a million
plus people that are going to beconsumers on the streets of Boston and South
(10:31):
Boston that are that are coming infor the weekend and sometimes longer than that.
So you know, the the benefitwe see it in the in the
in the meal taxes, and Ithink that's sort of an objective data point
that we can point to that showsthe really the economic benefits to the celebration.
Well, Senator, it's been funtalking to you, and I hope
(10:52):
you have a great day. Butnext time we get you on we're going
to talk about Beacon Hill. Okay, absolutely looking forward to it. Have
a happy Saint Patrick's Day and EvacuationDay. Hope to see everyone else the
prease happy Saint Patrick's day to you. Senator Nick Collins, all right,
Joe, still coming up. MarchMadness starts this week. You I remember
last year we had our brackets,and you know, if I could get
(11:16):
some help with a bracket, youknow, I think I you know,
I would go there. Tell usabout this company, Rhythm Rhythm. We
have a representative from Rhythm coming upnext. And there are sports analytics betting
company, so maybe maybe we canget some tips. Yeah, and maybe
we can be winners. Finally,the thin thing about Rhythm is they actually
track the advice they give. Inother words, they say, okay,
bet this way, bet this way, and they track their own recommendations.
(11:39):
You mean, they take responsibilasure whatthey might You're listening to New England Business
Report. You are listening to theNew England Business Report on the Voice of
Boston w RKO six't eighty.Joe and Kim will be right back.
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(14:31):
The New England Business Report on WRKOis brought to you in part by
Leader Bank, Modern Banking with apersonal touch. Welcome back, everybody you
know. This week the NCAA MarchMadness Tournament gets underway. Oh no,
oh yeah, yeah, you know. It's sixty seven games in total.
Course, it culminates after two weeksin the National Championship, and our next
(14:54):
guest works for our company that justmight be able to help you fill out
the those brackets. Rhythm, thankyou, I need help. Rhythm is
a sports betting analytic company. It'sbased here in Boston and we are joined
this morning by James Santaur. Heis the chief marketing officer for Rhythm.
Great to have you along. Thankyou for having me. Guys, really
(15:16):
appreciate it. You bet hey,talk to us about Rhythm before we get
into all the details about how you'regoing to help us win our office pools.
Tell us about Rhythm. Yeah,absolutely, Well, Happy March,
Dannis, by the way, wherethis is an awesome time of year.
It's you know, for all ofus that are working in the business world
or wherever your jobs are, beingable to have some sports all throughout the
day, it's just the best dealingever. So we're here to help make
(15:39):
that even better. So Rhythm basicallytakes all the complex data and all the
data that's out there for your favoritesports and makes it really easy to use
to become a better, better ordaily fantasy user and in this case for
brackets as well. So our teamsall from MIT they decided, Hey,
we're learning about these different financial modelsand how they're applied and you know in
the financial world, and we wantto take that and help sport betters,
(16:00):
in supports fans have a better experience, so able to take all that complexity
and then really make it a reallyeasy to use and fun to use app,
which is Rhythm. So we've beenlive really for a full marketing launch
since January and we started to reallycatch some traction and people are winning a
lot of money using us and justreally enjoying it. Yeah, transparency to
an industry that for a long timewas people sitting behind you know, Discord
(16:25):
channels, Twitter accounts or your traditionalbookies. So adding a layer of data
and responsible gaming to this, butreally just adding utility and helping people.
One more James, if you couldtalk us through this a little bit.
I'm a little bit confused on aRhythm as it relates to Okay, you've
got this app, I go there. You basically teach me or tell me
(16:45):
you know, Okay, this isyour best bet, this is how you
should bet on this next game orthis or whatever. But am I betting
on your app as well? Oram I just using it for research and
then hopping off? Sure? Greatquestion. So We are agnostic this book,
and the big reason is it isnot fun to be dealing with the
regulatory issues on the sports books.So we were like, you know what,
(17:06):
We're gonna be the tool to drivepeople to other sports books. So
that's basically what we do. Soif you're betting on driskings or standal whatever
it is, basically you use Rhythmto help figure out what picks you should
be using. So what Rhythm does, though, is it takes all the
data that's available, and there's multipleways to go about actually like driving that
data. So if you're somebody thatjust wants to be quick and easy,
but the way I always call ita Buffalo Wild Wings button, Like,
(17:27):
if you're sitting at a bar,you're sitting with all your friends and there's
multiple games on TV that you aren'tyou know, a fan of, or
you don't know enough about to makea really educated bet, then you can
press a button and Rhythm will giveyou all the recommended bets for every single
game across college basketball or MBA andNBA player props as well. And then
if you're somebody that's really really analytical, you can take the ability to make
(17:48):
your own custom models which is somethingthat usually was a reserve for data scientists
or people that had the time orthe money to go pay for for data
seats and manually spreadsheet sosically allows peopleto create custom models. But you can
either use it doing AI or youcan do it using in the custom modeling.
But in reality, we give youa menu recommend it bets all based
(18:11):
off of data in three years ofhistorical data to make it really easy for
you to go find what you wantto bet on and against make that a
more lucrative opportunity to well yeah,but James, you own it too.
You own your recommendations, right itwill I'm another word, so I can
go back and say, oh,Rhythm told me to do this right?
Oh yeah, So in the appwe want to make it so against.
Transparency is a big piece of this, right, Like we want it to
(18:33):
make sure that you can follow yourbets and understand where you're becoming a better
better Is your model good at moneylinebets or spread bets? And you can
kind of start to see where yourmodel's good at. And that's again like
understanding where you're the same way again, if you're looking at stocks, I
guess you see this is a certainmarket or industry that you're having success with.
You have a good eye for that, maybe you should keep investing there.
(18:55):
With sports betting. If your modelsare really good at finding great spread
bets, keep that in. That'sread on that model. So we're allowing
people to track within the app,allowing people to understand again more of that
historical aspect of what they're doing,and then again helping them find their next
bets and again just make it oncethey get past the is this model working,
it's like, oh man, I'mgoing to go dominate this and start
(19:15):
winning a lot of money. SoJames, because of that right there,
how did the draft kings of theworld feel about you guys? So it's
it's a question we get asked allthe time, and the best my favorite
thing to say is we're actually don'tuse rhythm. Is that what they're saying,
They're going to kill us the bestpart? No, that's the best
(19:36):
part. They you would think that, right because at the surface, we're
trying to help people win more.But sports books most of their money's not
made in sports betting. Most oftheir money's made in ice, you know,
and other products that they have.So we're driving users to their apps.
We drive retention because people are goingto bet more different games, spend
more time on the sports books,and the big piece of it is that
we also draw people to then convertto become on because you know, users
(20:00):
or use other aspects of the app, which then drives more revenue for the
sportsbooks. So in reality, youknow, look, we don't guarantee that
every single person is going to startwinning you know, eighty percent of their
bets, but the people that know, what do you guarantee? Yeah with
the we don't. We can't guaranteeanything. But our models have been hitting
at again, over a sixty percentrate every single sports over two percent ROI.
(20:22):
So again, those are the AIaspects. Now there's the human error
part right where people can pay differentrecommendations or either agree or disagree with the
recommendations. So we have those baselines. Again. Yes, these models are
working. They're all again where likethe professional gamblers, the ones who tout
their success, we're all in linewith again where their metrics are. So
once again we're still pretty new inthe sense that we only have you know,
(20:45):
a month and a half worth ofdata for our general users. But
the early data of what we're seeingis phenomenal. And again, the people
that have used this and really understandhow they're using Rhythm as part of their
routine, now they've started to justI mean again, we love seeing people
tweet us or send in big winsor their unit side. We have one
guy who's up like ninety units lastmonth, wow, which is crazy,
(21:06):
and everybody's unit size is different,but that's something where again his player props,
like he was using player props asa way of Hey, I found
out where I'm constantly having success.Now I'm going to absolutely take advantage of
this. If you certainly did inhis bank account stuffs thankful for it.
So tell us about you, say, you know you really will live in
January? We know you have obviouslyMarch madness. You just mentioned the NBA.
(21:30):
What are the other sports that Ican go to Rhythm and learn some
analytics? Sure, yeah, soI obviously no more NFL or college football
right now, but those are thetwo original sports. We had another really
exciting sport that's I think believes startsin May, but is the WNBA.
Now, WNBA is a great sportto bet on it. Most people don't
realize that because the lines are notas sharp as the NBA or the NFL.
(21:53):
So rhythm really helps you find thoseinefficiencies without you having to do anything.
And it's also a great way toWe had people that started betting the
WNBA last year. Not only didthey win a ton of money, but
they actually started to become like fansof the teams. We had a guy
that became a Connecticut Sun fan literallyball to Jersey and went to games because
of he just started betting on themand winning with them all the time on
rhythm. So that's a really coolone. And again it's driving people to
(22:15):
games that otherwise like they made LikeI'm a Sixers fan, Like if I
was to watch you know, I'mnot going and watching random teams games on
the night basis, But because rhythmstelling me to go bet on something,
I'd be more prone to do that. So that's been a pretty cool aspect
of it. So WNBA is goingto be great. We have NBA,
which we have game picks and playerprops, and then college basketball we have
game picks, and then we're comingout with golf in April, which will
(22:37):
be awesome. So we'll have thatin time for the Masters. Well,
we'll be able to help you driveall the best bets on every big golf
event, which golf betting is somethingthat's really really taking off in recent years.
And most exciting is that today actuallywe are releasing our marsh Bands Bracket
Generator. So what you can do, and this is free to anybody,
but you can literally just go andtap a button and get a data backs
(23:00):
bracket that you can use for allyour pools. Well, how do you
take into account that sweet sixteen,that's sixteen that beats the one? How
does AI do that? Well,I'll tell you what. They're always anomalies,
right, But that's the that's thething. It's like our data takes
into account play styles and historical youknow, like historical games. So if
they played a team that played let'ssay it's like a Houston versus I went
(23:22):
to Lasal. Lasal unfortunately lost byone yesterday, so I'm going to use
them as an example. But besad as I'm saying it. But let's
say Lasal made it to made itas a sixteen seed. If Lasal had
beaten teams that had a play stylelike a Houston or like a Kentucky.
Then it would showcase that and say, well they played five play styles like
this team, they lost by amargin of three each game they lasal as
(23:45):
a fifteen or a thirty percent chanceof winning because of like previous games.
Like that's none of the none ofthat data that I just explained you'd have
to do, But that's what's happeningon the back end that gives you recommendations.
So we've seen a ton of peoplehave success on underdogs all year.
We have it's a filter that youcan do. But like, let's I
mean, we do that every day. We have a dog of the day,
(24:06):
we give it on social media andit hits. It hits frequently.
I knew we've had some plus threefifty hits. We had a plus five
fifty hit. And that's something thatthe community just loves to talk because what
about what about the prop bets andthe color of the gatorade stuff like that,
Well they don't do that, right, you guys don't do that,
and we can't bet on that inMassachusetts anyway. Hey, James, we're
about out of time here. We'regoing to have to run, But I
(24:27):
want to ask you very quickly,you know, what does this cost me
as a better So for the bracketgenerator, completely free. Anybody can go
to Rhythm and download that and geta bracket sense to their email or to
the app. And then if youwant to use Rhythm for your March fand
this's betting too and all your NBAbetting, you have a free seven day
trial. So especially if you startthat at the beginning of March Madness,
(24:48):
could be a great way to learnhow to use the app and really make
some money during the tournament. Andthat it's thirty dollars a month to the
core subscription and for those really advanceddata people like that's our one hundred dollars
premium subscription. But we like tothink we have an option for everybody.
And again, it's been really coolto see the response we've gotten from the
community so far. James Ntour,thanks so very much for joining us.
And again, everybody, it's Rhythmand you spell that r h m M
(25:11):
that's how I spell it. That'sfun. That is fun, I mean,
And like you said, there's freefor a while, but that changes
to us subscription basis. But thatmakes perfect sense if you're making money off
them, absolutely all right, stillcome in your way, folks, it's
ask the realtor. I'm Kim carryingalong with Joe Schwartzleeve and you are listening
(25:32):
to New England Business Report. Onthis Saint Patti's Day. Kim and Joe
will explore more business news that impactsour New England economy when they return.
Are you thinking about selling your homebut hesitant because of your low rate mortgage
or concerned it might sell too quickly, leaving you without a place to go.
I'm Joe Shortzleeve and we hear you. These are real concerns for many
(25:56):
homeowners today. But I've got goodnews. La Machi Reality has faced these
challenges head on and comes equipped withsolutions they use daily with their clients.
Curious about the innovative approaches, LamachierReality employees to help you sell your home
while securing your next one, visitwant tobseller dot com. There's a lot's
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Visit fully vacation rentals dot com todayand secure your dream vacation. That's
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brought to you in part by LamachiaRealty. Lamachia Realty you will guide you
to your success. Visit Lamachiarealty dotcom and welcome back on this Saint Patrick's
(28:08):
Day in Boston. You're listening tothe New England Business Report. Joke Schartzleeve
here along with Kim Kerrigan. We'rein the green today. We've got a
lot to talk about. But Kimand I in this part of the program,
what we like to do is welike to pick out a couple of
other stories that are out there thatreally caught our attention this week. And
this survey, Kim, this surveyabout was released on this past Monday by
(28:32):
the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce Foundationfound that alarming one in four young people
plan to leave Greater Boston in thenext five years. I mean, this
is something we were talking about onour Bloomberg program a couple of years ago,
this outward migration. But this,this survey, you know, has
got to have them shaken in theirboats absolutely well. If you remember earlier,
(28:53):
you know, as in one ofour very first broadcasts here on New
England Business, we talked to JohnCesto about the idea that outward migration maybe
wasn't as bad as originally thought,but this goes against that idea. Yeah,
I mean, and these are youngpeople. These are ages twenty to
thirty, some one and four planto leave and it all comes back to
(29:17):
the high cost of rent. Itcomes back with the ability to buy a
home. So and the commute aswell. This generation is just sort of
not buying the fact that they're goingto sit in the pike for hours ago.
That generation and mine, by theway, also another just business story
quickly today El Street tavern this monthchanging hands right here in St. Patrick's
(29:37):
day. There's going to be anew local owner. But that's a you
know, obviously made famous by thatBen Affleck film Good Will Hunting, but
that far changing hands this month.It's time for our weekly feature Ask the
Real Term, and we are joinedby the founder and CEO of Lamachia Realty,
Anthony Lamachia. Good morning, sir, Good morning, great to have
(30:00):
you with us. Like always,he President Biden delivering his State of the
Union address last week, and duringthe course of that address, he talked
about some proposals that he's putting forwardto increase the abundance and to lower the
cost of housing for working families.There's a whole bunch of things that he
talked about, but I thought we'dask you what stood out the most to
(30:22):
people in your community. Well,we had a lot of buyers asking,
you know, oh, there's amortgage credit now, and it's like,
well, hang on. The Presidentdid what every president does from every side
of the aisle and talked about proposals. It doesn't mean any of it has
passed. And if you go onthe White House website or web page with
respect to the State of the Union, it's very clear that President Biden is
(30:48):
calling on Congress to pass mortgage relief. Then you scroll down more down payment
assistant assistance for first generation homeowners.The President continues to call on Congress to
provide up to twenty five thousand indownteam and assistance. Much of what he
talked about are things that he's callingon Congress to do. Some of it
I'm sure they have genuine hopes todo, and some of it i'm sure,
(31:10):
like any president is talking points tosound good or leading up to an
election. All right, answer,There's another one point that he made,
and it is this idea of requiringreal estate investors to pay taxes when they
sell real estate, even if theyreinvest the proceeds in other real estate.
Well, I'm curious about that interms of who's a real estate investor.
(31:34):
Well, it's a horrible idea,and he's been talking about that since he
first became president, and that isessentially to eliminate or substantially restrict the ten
thirty one like kind exchange. Soright now, and I'm going to speak
in broad general terms for the accountantslistening. Don't call in and say,
oh, Anthony misspoke on one littlepart. Right now, you own an
(31:56):
investment property for a certain amount ofyears, you can sell that property,
take the proceeds, buy something elsewith those proceeds. Usually it has to
be within forty five days, andyou can roll the proceeds right into the
next purchase. Okay, he's saying, Nope, the investors should have to
pay taxes on that and shouldn't beable to roll all that money into the
next property. I disagree with him. This is something that has been in
(32:19):
place for decades and what it doesis it motivates investors to sell properties,
buy bigger ones, do substantial renovationswhen they buy properties. So I'm very
very much against any talk of eliminatingthe ten thirty one exchange. And I
think that's just an example of howlawmakers, in this case the president,
but I've seen it with governors.We've seen it all over the place.
(32:43):
They think they come up with brightideas, but they don't realize how much
it'll hurt on the ground. Solet's talk about the proposals that came about
that you'd like to see get throughsomething that is good for the consumer and
good for the industry as a whole. Well, I like hearing them talk
about down payment assistance, and recentlyI've been debating on this kind of thing
(33:06):
with our industry is in some legalturmoil from some plaintiff's attorneys who are out
to money grab and one of thethings they've been saying is, well,
down payment assistants should be used topay realtort. Well, that's not true.
It's not paid for that. Itdoesn't allow that. But when you
look into down payment assistance, ithas a lot of restrictions. It sounds
good at the surface, and itnever works out quite the way that it
(33:28):
should. For example, what happensis oftentimes the regulations with the down payment
assistants say things like, well,you can get a fifteen thousand dollars grant
if you buy a property in GreaterBoston, but it's only if your incomes
less and I'm making up numbers,but one hundred and forty thousand, well,
if they're under one hundred and fortythousand, they're probably not buying in
(33:49):
Greater Boston. So often the twocollides. So I did like hearing him
talk about the twenty five thousand dollarsin down payment assistance. Now they said
to first generation home buyers whose familieshaven't benefited from generational wellness and that so
they're very much targeting obviously immigrants cominginto the country, which hey, great,
(34:09):
you know, great to help them, but I wish they would broaden
it a little. But I willtell you I was happy to hear him
mention down payment assistance because that's thebiggest hurdle to home ownership, and it
is the reason that the average agefor a first time buyer nowadays is thirty
five. Kim. When I firstmet you years ago, the average age
(34:30):
was about twenty eight. That wasonly what twelve thirteen years and I think
we were both twenty eight, weren'twe. Yeah, Hey, I'm still
twenty eight, all right, saidKim. You're looking twenty nine at least.
Yeah, but think about that,the average age has gone up to
thirty five. Now. I hopefullysee that improved when rates come back down
in the next couple of years.But I don't know, because the inventory,
(34:51):
as we've talked about for several weeks, is strangulated and is propping and
pushing prices, so we shall see. I'm happy, generally to hear the
President talking about housing and to acknowledgethat there is a true housing recession going
on right now in sales. Obviouslynot in prices. Prices on collapsing,
but there is a substantial slowdown insales. Anthony Lamachia, like always,
(35:15):
thanks so very much. I havea great rest of the weekend. Thank
you, my friends, have agood one. Bybye. All right.
Well, if you commute on themass Pike into Boston, you're gonna want
to just listen up here. There'sthis whole plan to straighten the mass Pike
(35:35):
in the Alston area of Boston.You've heard about it, right, So
now there's been this big money grab, so to speak, the federal government
has awarded Massachusetts and the City ofBoston some three hundred and thirty five million
dollars to straighten I ninety and Austin, a project that would create, according
to Greg Ryan, a Boston BusinessJournal senior reporter, would create a west
(35:57):
station for public transit and unlocked dozensof acres of riverside property for Harvard University
to develop. Greg joins us nowon the line, So Greg tell us,
tell us about this project and thelikelihood of it going forward. Yeah,
So this has been in the worksnow for over a decade. There've
been debates about how exactly the pikeshould should be realigned and the effects that
(36:19):
would have on the neighborhood and theriver. But a couple of years ago
the state came through with the solutionthey wanted to pursue, and now they
have this federal money. So thisis three hundred and thirty five million dollars
that's for that goes toward an estimatedone point nine billion dollar cost. You
know, they do have some otherfunding line up that you know, the
city and Harvard and BU have pooledtogether or committed about three hundred million dollars,
(36:45):
but that leaves more than a million, more than a billion dollars for
the state to pick up. Andso it's it's an open you know,
the state has aggressively pursued this project, but it's an open question about where
the state is going to find thatmoney. Yeah, So where are some
of the proposed spots they may findthat money. Yeah, so state officials
last year if a few options.One would be about with the bonds and
(37:09):
loans. They came out and saidwe could do almost five hundred million dollars
in bonds and loans, another twohundred million dollars in highway tolls, and
then four hundred and fifty million dollarsfrom the millionaires tacks. Now, that
doesn't get you all the way tothe one point nine million dollars. It
does give you most of the way. But just take the millionaire's tack for
instance. That's something that the legislaturewould have to approve, and there's a
(37:32):
lot of competing priorities when it comesto how to use that money. That's
what they've outlined so far. GregRyan, senior reporter of Boston Business Journals.
Our guest, all right, Greg, what about the commuter? What
about the folks on the Pike duringthis construction period. What does this project
do to them? Yes, therewere there would certain I would. I
(37:52):
don't think they've leigh out exactly whatthe delays would be or which lanes would
be shut down. I mean,this is something you know, even with
this federal funding that is years awayfrom becoming reality. I certainly think there
would be an effect there, Iguess on the positive side, and this
is something that the backers really pointto, is the increased rail transit.
(38:15):
So you'd get the commuter rail linefrom Worcester would be stopping at this new
West station. There's been a lotof talk about connecting this West station over
into Cambridge and Kendall Square so thatit opens up that area to commuters.
But in the meantime, yeah,I think it's safe to say there will
be some head exert. Basically,forget it. It sounds like a good
(38:37):
idea until that you start thinking aboutthat. He let's change gears just a
little bit this week. This pastweek, there was an editorial in the
Boston Business Journal about public record lawsand how beneficial those can be to businesses.
To talk a little bit about,you know, why they're beneficial and
some of the things that the BostonBusiness Journal has found. Yeah, so
(39:00):
this is Sunshine Week to reference to, you know, government transparency and how
important that is to the press andand so yeah, my my editors are
an editorial on the subject. Youknow, it's huge Massachusetts for all it's
you know, progressive reputation, it'sreally one of the worst states. It's
regularly ranked one of the worst stateswhen it comes to h you know,
(39:22):
public transparency and you know feyer,you know, accessibility, that's Freedom of
Information Act, public records requests,and these are hugely important. I mean,
I'm just looking at my own reporting. You know, I've reported as
a real estate reporter. I've reporteda lot. I'm building values downtown.
I was able to get the applicationsthat that have been made so far for
(39:46):
the for Mayor wose office to residentialprogram. That's a taxing center program for
office buildings being switched over to apartments. So you know that just take that
story alone, I mean, thatgives a sense of how well this and
is working. You know, howmany applicants forgetting you know, to what
degree this is really going to helpsolve the issues that downtown is having,
(40:07):
you know, without public records requests. You know, it's totally up to
you know, the government whether theywant to make this information available when they
want to make the information available.So it really helps the public understand what's
going on of it. Well,Greg is an editorial like this, So
folks at the BBJ are hoping thatthis will move the needle up on Beacon
Hill in terms of, you know, making this easier to get the information
(40:30):
we want moving forward. I thinkso. Yeah. The state legislature,
I want to say, you know, is mid twenty tens. I think
they did update the law. Itdid make some modesty improvements, but the
state's still you know, regularly rankedtowards the bottom when it comes to government
(40:50):
transparency and requests like this. Soyeah, there is plenty of room for
improvements in that area. All right, Well, we'll keep Erye on it.
He's Greg Ryan. He is thesenior reporter there with the Boston Business
Journal. Of course, the BBJis one of our partners here on this
new program. Here the New EnglandBusiness Report. Up next, Kim,
we get to talk about well,I guess it's it's love in the air.
(41:12):
I mean, oh, there wego just a month later. Yeah,
we're talking about dating and a newdating app by the name of Lola
dot com and it is the workof a serial entrepreneur, Paul English.
That's up next. You are listeningto the New England Business Report on the
Voice of Boston WRKO six't eightyJoe and Kim will be right back.
(41:38):
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Hi, everybody, I'm Kim Kerriganand I'm Joe Shortsley. If you
(43:44):
want to be part of the NewEngland Business Report. Sponsorships are still available.
You can email us at Any BusinessRadio at gmail dot com. That's
Any Business Radio all one word atgmail dot com and we'll get your business
on the show too. The NewEngland Business Report on w RKO is brought
(44:10):
to you in part by Suparo ofNew England. Feel the freedom of a
brand new twenty twenty four Subaru featuringsymmetrical all wheel drive. Suparov New England
dot com. Our next guest isWell, he's a local kid. He's
from West Roxbury and his dream oneday would be to own a car wash.
(44:32):
And instead of that, though,Paul English and a co founder went
out and founded the app Kayak intwo thousand and four. Well, they
sold that in twenty twelve for twobillion dollars. Today Paul has his fingers
in all kinds of pies and oneof them is a new dating app and
it's it's starting out here right herein the city of Boston, is known
(44:55):
as Lola la dot com and Pauljoins us. Now welcome the program.
Fall It's great to talk to bothof you. All right, tell us
about this Lola dating app. Yeah, we just released it and It's different
from every other dating app in twoways. The first way is the first
time you run Lola, it says, lolos of people want to go out
(45:16):
this week? What night do youwant to go out? Monday, Tuesday,
Wednesday, Thursday. We show youthe next five nights. If you're
not ready to go out and youclick a little button and say not ready,
we say lolos of people want togo out this week. If you
just want to chat, we highlyrecommend hinder Bumble. Those are great ass
for chatting, which a little bitof a you know, push to them.
But once you pick a night,let's say you say Tuesday night,
(45:39):
We then match you only with peoplewho also want to go out on Tuesday
nights. We're kind of, youknow, cut to the chase and not
have people talk end to sleep forweeks, but basically, take a risk
and meet go meet someone, andthat person you meet might be the love
of your life. You know.We just want you to get out there.
So that's the basic idea. Thesecond thing we do is, let's
(46:00):
say you meet with Rachel on Tuesdaynight. On Wednesday morning, we message
you and we say, did yougo out with Rachel last night? Yes?
And no, how would you rateyour experience one to five? And
which of these positive and negative attributesto associate with the date. We never
share this information with tell anyone whatyou said, and we don't publish ratings.
(46:22):
However, we do use this fortwo reasons. One is to one
is to feed it into machine learningso that we can provide you better and
better matches. And the second one, frankly, is if we find people
that are rated a one out offive and then rated one out of five
(46:43):
for a certain reason, like someonemarxim is unsafe, we give them a
lifetime ban off the app. Now, Paul English is our guest, And
Paul, you didn't choose the nameRachel just by happenstance, because Rachel happens
to be your co founder and yourfiance. That's right. And so when
you met on a dating app,not Lola, but another, Yeah,
(47:06):
Races and I met four years agoin New York, and I think she
pitched for the idea for Lula onour second date. So tell me why
you guys thought that another dating appwas an important thing. We would just
talk to people every now and then, We like ask people how they met.
That's a lot of times they hearfunny stories about that. And when
people talk about dating apps, theyjust complain about them. People are unhappy.
(47:30):
And we did a poll last summerof two hundred and fifty people in
Boston about what don't they like aboutdating apps, and the two things they
said loud and clear was that justway too much chatting. You're chatting with
ten people at once, You're chattingwith someone for a week and then they
go tough. They you have noidea why they disappeared, and she's just
like too much work. And thesecond thing is they said, you meet
(47:52):
someone on mine, they seem cool, but you meet him in presson on
like huge lockdown. Either they quoteunquote catfishy, which means they use a
photo which looks nothing like what theyactually look like, or are they're just
like not a good person, andwe intend to fill to those seeple out
well, Paul, Okay, listeningto how this works. If I'm new
to Lola and I'm just popping onand then I say, Okay, I'm
(48:15):
available Tuesday night, boom now,but then I'm out meeting people and you
really haven't screened me that much upto this point. Correct and I mean,
I could be a horrible date.All we we haven't screened you that
much, but we will. Wehave a bunch of questions. We interview
you at the beginning, but wehaven't done a it's just an online review,
(48:37):
but we've we screen you once youstart dating, because then we get
feedback about you. But initially,just like an uber, everyone starts with
a five ozer rating every driver,every passenger. You'll start with a perfect
rating, but then based on peoplegive you feedback, you're rating will change
over time. What's the reaction,Because I know it's new you guys launched
(48:57):
late fall. Some people like,really, are you going to kick off
like that? Guys who said,yes, we are. We're probably going
to be kicking people off. We'vealready kicked people off for inappropriate believe it
or not, inappropriate profiles. Andthen people like it. They like saying,
you know, one of our typesof our users are divorced parents.
(49:20):
And if you have a joint custody, your life is very busy between the
hold on a full time job plusswitting half custody. And many times they'll
be like, all right, I'mfree on Thursday and that's my only night
freak because I have the kids forthe weekend and they just want to say,
I want to have a nice dinneron Thursday. Master me up with
someone and that's what we'll do.Paul English as our guest. He is
(49:42):
the founder of the dating app Lola. He's a local kid from West Roxbury.
Paul, as you know, we'rea business program, Kim and I
the New England Business Report. Takeus inside the business decision here if you
could share with us. Okay,so what am I paying to be part
of? What's what's financial success foryou? And this operation moving forward?
(50:05):
Take us inside some of the businessaspects. Yeah. So the two metrics
that we're going to focus on overthe next couple of months because we have
in theory we think we know howthe business model is going to evolve,
but we're not going to know ituntil we start charging. We haven't started
charging yet. And the two thingsin any tech consumer is you need to
know it's called CAC and LTV CACis cost of acquisition. How much does
(50:30):
it costs us in advertising to getsomeone to see an ad for low and
say it sounds really cool, toget them to download the app and Downalod
app and set up an account.And the second one is called LTV or
lifetime value, and that is ifsomeone's paying us and we haven't find less
of pricing yet, Let's say it'stwenty dollars a month on average. We
(50:52):
understand from other people in the industrythat people staying dating ups for about six
months, So that's about one hundredand twenty dollars life time value for that
customer. And as long as it'sa big ratio that it costs us a
lot less than that to get someout of the platform, then you ended
up making a very profitable business.And talk about if you will, Paul,
(51:13):
the name Lola, that has beensomething that's been with you for a
while. You love that name.Yeah, I mean, there's a funny
backstory. When we created Kayak,we incorporated the company as Travel Starch Company,
Inc. We didn't really have aname and we wanted to have a
great name, so we hired abrand aid in say New York, my
co founder and I and we wouldgo have weekly meetings in New York to
(51:36):
talk about brand asperations and brand identity. We end up coming up with a
list of one hundred words we nowthat downe to five. The five finalist
words what became Kayak Number one wasactually Lola, and back then we called
a deportmanteau for longitude latitude l LA. We tried to buy the name,
we couldn't afford. It was ownedby a defined clothing company by a very
(51:58):
wealthy man. Isn't selling the name, so we went Our second choice is
Kayak, just out of trivia.The third, fourth, and fifth choice
was cake Eat no Cake, Rice, and hives. So those are our
five finals. But now when it'stime to create Lola, I'm like,
now I can afford the name.I'm going to buy the name that I
(52:19):
want, and it stands for lovelanguage exactly in this case. Yeah,
that's great. Paul English is ourGUESTI is the founder of Lola. You're
starting in Boston right now. Giveus a little taste of how it's going.
But beyond that, I guess youhave plans for soon New York City
in Miami. That's right. Yeah, right now, we have about twenty
(52:43):
five hundred profiles on the system.We're waiting till we have about five thousand
before we open it up for livematch, in which we expect to happen
in the next few weeks after welaunch in Boston. New York is next,
which is a much bigger city asyou know, of course, and
then Miami. I think it'll benumber three. So we're going to spread
for us on the East coast andthen we'll take it to the West coast
and then sort of travel in andhave East meat West Paul, There's no
(53:06):
question that dating apps are very popular, But I'd like to ask you why
you think that's the case. It'sjust it's it's really a a system of
numbers. You know, you couldgo out every night and try to go
to either a bar or you likein Seapot in Boston it's a dark place.
(53:30):
There's a put jack mini golf place. But in general you might meet,
you know, five people in anight. In a dating app,
you can go through twenty people,a thirty people, of fifty people and
connect with one who looks interesting toyou. They have a nice profile,
you like the pictures, you're likewhat they say about themselves. They let
(53:51):
goals and you start chatting with them, which is like an incredibly efficient way
to draw a larger pool. Paul. You have folks that fill out a
scorecard. My final question for you. I kind of enjoyed as I was
researching you a little bit some ofthe things that people do wrong on that
first or second date. And Iwas reading that, I want to say,
(54:12):
well, arrogant, drink too muchbad cologne. We got that complain
a lot the positive negative abuse thatwe put into the app, and you
have to select between one and threepositives between zero and three negatives. Those
come directly from our survey. Weserve return for people who said, and
your last date that didn't go well, why didn't you like that person?
(54:34):
And believe it or not? Toostrong a fragrance came up a lot,
So we want to give you thatfeedback because you might wonder why they have
a lot of first dates but nota lot of second dates. And I'm
going to say, hey, buddy, calm down on the cologne. Well,
well, all right, he's aPaul English local kid, and make
good with the Lola. It's nowavailable in Boston. Thank you for joining
us. Paul in the New EnglandBusiness Report. All right, well,
(55:00):
it seems like everything he touches turnsto gold. Yeah, we'll have to
see what happens here with Lola.Never mind the business side of it,
but for the folks who are usingit absolutely well. Joe, that's going
to do it for Saint Patrick's DAPEprogram today. Quick reminder to everybody that
the parade steps off at South Bostonat one o'clock, So if you're driving
(55:21):
in that area, good luck,I suggest you, Joe. But we
do hope everybody has a really greatsafe day. Let's take a look at
what's coming up on New England Businessnext Sunday morning. One of our guests
will be John Hurst. He's thepresident of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts,
along with the CEO of A StreetHospitality. We're going to learn about hospitality
(55:44):
in the city and how it's going. And there's a couple of really cool
openings that are going to happen thisspring, and here we're going to talk
about that. Joe Shorts with KimKerrigan. You've been listening to the New
England Business Support Happy Saint Patty's Day. Everybody can
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