In this episode of the Knup Sports Show, host Ryan Knuppel interviews Megan Lanham, the CEO of Rithmm, a sports betting app. Lanham discusses how Rithmm uses predictive modeling and AI to help users make smart betting decisions. The app allows users to input their instincts and preferences, and then generates recommended bets based on those inputs. Rithmm recently launched a subscription paid version and expanded its offerings to include NFL, NBA, and college basketball. Lanham also discusses the challenges of starting a business and the future plans for Rithmm, including partnerships with content providers and other sports tech startups. She encourages listeners to try out the app and emphasizes the importance of using data and a systematic approach to sports betting.
Ryan Knuppel:
Hey, what’s going on everybody? Ryan Knuppel here. Knup Sports Show, episode 214. Hope you’re all doing very well. We’re recording this on a Thursday. We are in full swing with tons of sports. My guest and I were just talking about how October is an amazing time for sports and I’m sure we’re going to dive into that a little bit here when we start chatting. But man, world series getting kicked off here. NBA started, NHL started. NFL’s going college, football’s going, college basketball’s kicking off next month. It’s like, whoa. We are in a great time for sports if you’re a sports fan. Well, I appreciate you tuning into this show, giving us some support. We’ve really enjoyed it. I enjoyed talking to many of you at G2E and look forward to meeting some of you next week actually in Miami at the SBC Latino America event. Hopefully we’ll meet some of you in person there. Make sure you say hello if you are there. Alright, that’s enough intro stuff. Let’s dive into the guts today. Let’s bring on our guest today. We have none other than Megan Lanham. Megan, how are you? You doing well today?
Megan Lanham:
Doing great. Oh, Ryan, I’m doing fantastic.
Ryan Knuppel:
Awesome. As you pointed out right when you came on camera with me, man, October is a great time for sports, isn’t it?
Megan Lanham:
It’s the best. This is like the air starts to crisp for those in those areas and just every sports just starts to emerge and your weeks are filled. So yeah, I love this time of year dating back to when I coached ball and played ball, just like this is the time of year.
Ryan Knuppel:
That’s amazing. Same with me through the summer. I get a little, I wouldn’t even use the word depressed because I’m obviously not depressed, but I get sports depressed, right? I’m like, I Love baseball, but I’m like, oh my gosh, is this all we got? When is football starting? And then once football starts, you’re like, holy crap. Now there’s a lot going on and it’s overwhelming as a sports person. But anyway. Well, Megan, I want to learn about you and what you’re up to with Rithmm, but first off, tell us about yourself, your background, your history. Just give us a little bit about yourself.
Megan Lanham:
Sure. Well first, thanks for having me. Well, I mean, like you mentioned, I grew up in a small town in Illinois, town of 900, Sheffield, Illinois, and played ball in college. Went on to coach basketball division one for over a decade. Then I decided to lead the basketball world and I went to people would consider traditional business and from there joined a startup in the life science recruiting industry and helped build that company. Wasn’t the founder, but was a joiner. Helped build that company. Sold to a private equity firm 2017. Then I became the CEO of that company, and then we built a conglomerate and we sold that company a year ago, roughly a year or so ago. And then here I am now with startup with Rithmm, which we can get into, but that’s just a brief former athlete, always an athlete, and have really run all my businesses that like an athlete.
Ryan Knuppel:
I love that in basketball, in your blood. I’m a basketball person as well. And yeah, I think that’s one thing that gets overlooked a lot of times is there’s a lot that you can learn from being an athlete and being in sports. There’s a lot of that that can carry over into business, especially as an entrepreneur. There’s just different lessons, different things you learn through your sports career that I always made sure to take over and carry over. And it sounds like you kind of had the same principles and same things carry over as well.
Megan Lanham:
Oh, 100%. When I left basketball, the worry was what’s my life going to be like? I’ve always been on campus, I’ve always been, I mean, that’s all I ever knew. I went from playing right into coaching and what was fascinating was then the transitioning. It was so easy because you just literally take your skills. You’ve been around a lot of people, you figure out how people move, you’re resilient, the ebbs and flows, all of those things just really start to pour out and next thing you know you’re like, oh, this is actually easier than coaching. That one’s quite a revelation. Awesome,
Ryan Knuppel:
Awesome. Well, yeah, let’s dive into Rithmm. I know you mentioned it there, but for those listening that may not know what Rithmm is, why don’t you give us a high level overview of what the app is and what you’re up to?
Megan Lanham:
Yeah, so Rithmm was Found. So Rithmm was founded. I went to MIT to when I was ACEO of the other company. I thought I needed more analytical training, so applied to MIT to get into their business program MBA program. And during that my time at MITI was in a predictive models class dated decisions and modeling class, and I just became fascinated with how Using predictive models within the company I was in and with my classmates, just how accurate we were able to predict outcomes.
I literally stopped in class and I started thinking about, well, who’s doing this in sports betting? I started to dabble in sports betting when I left coaching and was doing a lot of NBA vetting and just, it’s a college, Vince college basketball betting and fell in love with it and was using my coaching instincts and data to make my picks. But when I saw this predictive modeling tool that we were doing at MIT, I was thinking, wouldn’t it be cool if I could take what I know in basketball, input it into this predictive model, then have it recommend Betts,
And that’s what Rithmm does. So I took that idea and thought, okay, obviously I did research like, oh, this is what all the sharps are doing. The pros, they have a team of quants and data engineers and they’re doing this. However, data is hard to find. Data is expensive. There’s not every run of the mill quant you can find. And having your Excel spreadsheets just seem like a really nerdy thing to do on a weekend and keep track of all this. There’s just no way for a casual better, a recreational better, even a kind of quasi a sharp, it’s just hard to do. So Rithmm is we’ve developed Rithmm. It’s on, it’s an app, it’s a platform as well, but we’re on Apple and Android. Basically we’ve taken all the predictive modeling, we put it on the backend
And on the front end, the user, you take your instincts, you input those instincts, and within less than a minute you have a recommended picks for tonight’s game or the whole week’s game. Then that’s just the short of it. And then obviously there’s alt lines, we have player injuries. We could take players out and have your model update, but the overview is that if you want to make smart betting decisions and you’re not a quant, how do you get quant like modeling without having to do the work? And so we removed the barrier created Rithmm, and this is where we are today.
Ryan Knuppel:
Amazing. That’s amazing. That’s great backing ground, and thank you for sharing that. It’s crazy how ideas start from just something you heard in class writing and all of a sudden it translates into a business and now you’re off and running with a business. You said something there that I think you said one word in there that I think may relate to the types of models you’re building. You said use your instincts that I think probably expand on that, use your fan because a lot of people I think are trying to use trends and numbers and things like all of that, but instincts, explain what you meant by that.
Megan Lanham:
Yeah, so this is how we think of it, right? Is that okay if you coached, if you’re a fan and you’re sitting there watching games all the time, you’ve got hunches call ’em instincts or just your thought process and you’re like, Hey, I think a high offense team, high tempo team, that those things are important to me. I wonder if I could make a model with those type of attributes. Where would that model find games that have those teams that could help cover or help me win my betts, whatever type of betts I’m making? That’s what we did. So it’s twofold. So we have a premium and a core version. Core version is the more simplified version. So what our quants have done, they have taken for basketball, they, they’ve broken it down into five categories, okay, offense, defense, tempo files, and three pointers. All the user has to do is look at those factors and slide a bar. We have, we need you to wait the importance of those factors. So if you’re like, again, I think high tempo and high offense are critical, then what will happen is we’ll take that, combine it with our algorithm. Within less than a minute, you’re going to have a model and it’s going to share with you, here’s where that model exists, what games that model exists, and it will recommend a bet or it will give you a caution sign. It also helps you with stay away from that. Your model doesn’t exist. What is happening? If there’s something on the market, it doesn’t like it, stay away or it’ll give you a green start. It’ll say, here’s where your model exists. And then real quick, we have a premium tier where if users want to go in and say, you know what? I don’t want to take these prefabricated factors that the quants made. I want to make my own,
But I also want your algorithm, so I want you to run it through a predictive model. So for me, I love the permit. I like that version because I get to go in and take all of my knowledge instincts and say, you know what? I think red zone conversions are important. I think third down conversion, I think teams that rush the quarterback are important things in that nature. You get to plug those in, create your own model, and then obviously same thing within less than a minute, you’re going to have that one takes a little bit longer because there’s just so much that goes into it. You’re going to have a whole host of, here are the recommended betts.
Ryan Knuppel:
That’s amazing. Yeah, that was the one thing that stood out to me when I downloaded the app and I played around with it a little bit. It was very easy to create a model because it was the sliding bars. I didn’t have to overthink the, oh, well, how much do I weigh this? And all it was just like, oh, I think this is important, a little more than this, a little more than that. And all of a sudden it’s like, oh, this is actually when I’m thinking about making a bet. This is kind of the stuff I’m thinking about. And that’s what you’re saying is the point and kind of the backbone of why you guys created Rithmm. But it makes a lot of sense because we all have, our mind works in different ways in how we think about a bit. And so yeah, a really cool idea and really I think different than some people have approached it. Talk a little bit about from a business side where you’re at. Where are you at in life cycle of the business of the app?
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Megan Lanham:
So we beta tested for a year. So last year we launched college football, men’s basketball, a March madness bracket generator. That was awesome. We launched NBA at the end of a little bit later after March Madness, so not a ton of NBA. And then we launched A-W-N-B-A this summer. Those were all beta testing. Those were all core. We had not launched our premium version that I mentioned where you can go into the statistical library and grab your own stats.
So where we are to date is we launched officially a subscription paid version. We’re out of beta mode and we launched NFL as well. So we came out what I call swinging. We got NFL working. So we have obviously core and premium version ready for NFL. What’s cool about the NFL is if you’re a premium member, you get to go in and adjust. So like Brock Purdy, right? Rumor is he’s going to be out. What does that do for your model? Everybody wanted, that was one of the pieces where when we were building this, a lot of our users for the whole beta year were like, Hey, in the pros, what do we do in a player drops? How does that affect your model? And so our quants got in there and figured out a way to wait. Obviously players that would be heavily determined in outcome. And so things like that, you can go in there and say, take Brock Purdy out. What would the model do? So with where we are, we’ve launched, we have, if you go to Rithmm, you’ll get 14 days free trial. We want you to use it. It’s a process. It’s not a one hit wonder. You need to get into the Rithmm of it.
And we have NFL college football, we just launched NBA last night, which was awesome. We have men’s college basketball coming in two weeks
Ryan Knuppel:
Because we all know, as you said, March Madness is the best time of the year. We love March Madness.
Megan Lanham:
Well, it was so cool. So we decided to do this. God, it was wild last year we were like, Hey, wouldn’t it be awesome if we could take the model? So if a user, you can build three models, what if those three models could actually generate a bracket? We did it last year. Now this was like data again, can it work because the lines aren’t available and it worked. And so what I mean by it worked, so we had over 3000 beta testers, so 3000 brackets were created and we had seven of those brackets picked that final four, Which you Remember that final four was unprecedented.
That was a crazy Final Four. And we had brackets that picked the two Princeton wins and we had brackets that did pick Yukon. I think 46 brackets had Yukon win. So again, so we’re super psyched that we’re going to be able to do that again. And then also with all these in-season tournaments that NBA is coming out with, things in that nature, we can take that tech that we built for March badness and repurpose it for other tournaments.
Ryan Knuppel:
So who is Rithmm four? You mentioned a couple, I guess buckets of betters. You mentioned the beginners in the sharps and all the above. Is Rithmm truly designed to be for any type of better or are you guys really targeting a certain, I guess for lack of better words, bucket of betters
Megan Lanham:
Rithmms for? So yeah, we’re targeting people that are already betting. So we’re not trying to go out and grab the market of fans that have never placed a bet, not Doing that. We want you to come in with some form of, Hey, I asked my buddy who does he have? Do they have tonight or I’m doing some research online or I’m buying some picks. Those people that are doing that Rithmm is for those people.
If you’re getting exhausted with research. So I would say recreational to Sharps, those are who, and then we have a whole host of people that are scraping data and have some type of modeling that they’re doing. They are using the higher version because they like to see if there’s some model agreement. But I mean at the very simplest form, this was built for recreational vendors and with the premium tier for people that want to get more data. I’ll tell you, my parents are in their seventies and my mom loves basketball and she uses Rithmm and has performed very well. So she’s 75. I’m like, she has figured it out. Get, yeah. So we’ve tried to personalize it. We’ve tried to make the core version as simple enough, but also we can’t lose. I mean the tech on the backside and the minds on the backside are just out of this world.
Ryan Knuppel:
That’s amazing. And we’ll talk about the future of Rithmm here in a bit, but I want to talk more higher level, the future of tech and the future with AI and all this stuff coming. I’m fascinated and actually I geek out over how we can use tech to improve our life because I truly believe it can help us be more efficient and anything we’re doing this being help you make better sports picks. But talk about what that future looks like because it’s always evolving and always progressing. And with all the AI stuff going on now, what’s the future of this all look like? From a very macro level,
Megan Lanham:
The way that we’re looking at it, so we are launching, I mean we use AI right now obviously with our algorithm predictive models.
So we’re using that and then we want to take a step further and give our users more access. So we are launching what we call Rithmm ai, which is a bot essentially. And what we’re trying to do with AI is really, like you said, make your life more efficient. So you could ask it anything you want about sports betting and it will answer questions for you. It won’t just be Rithmm based. We’re doing that too, obviously. That’s what every, I mean that’s the easy play. But then the next play would be like, I got tired of having to go around, so I have Rithmm, but then there’s times I want to also see how did this team do last week or some other preliminary research. I was sick and tired of going around trying to find all this data. So what we’re doing now is launching where it’s on our site, you can go there, it’s all sports betting. And then we’re going to take it a step further and we’re going to use AI too. So let’s say you’re using Rithmm, we’re going to spit out, AI will basically look at how you’re betting and spit out all of the metrics, but then also make suggestions and recommendations and really personalize it for you. And then also the goal will be next is to help you then say, Hey, based on everything that you’ve done, here are betts that really speak to you.
And then almost think of it like Spotify essentially, where it’s recommending something that’s more personalized to you. The goal here is like you said, is using AI to make things more efficient and not complicated. So that’s where we’re headed is really personalizing this more for the user.
Ryan Knuppel:
I love it. I love it. What’s it been like starting a business? So let’s talk a little bit more on the business side. Give us some of your experiences as a founder, CEO, everything. I’m sure you wear all the hats,
But give us some of Your experiences and challenges maybe that you’ve went through over the last year or so when creating Rithmm.
Megan Lanham:
Yeah, so this stuff is hard. So I’m not going to sit here and say you’ve got to really have thick skin When you’re building a company, there are highs and lows and there are things that you’re trying to see around the corner, and you’re also learning with a fire hose coming at you. So you are literally just, you’re on 24 7 because of the amount of learning that’s coming at you and the amount of information that’s coming at you. And then like you said, you’re wearing multiple hats. You’re fundraising, you’re doing customer, you’re having customer conversations and interviews, you’re thinking marketing, you’re trying to talk to influencers to share with them Rithmm. You’re also, I’m doing project management for our engineering team. So you’re wearing all these hats. You’re learning at an incredible level of information coming in and you need to make clear decisions and concise decisions with the data that you have. So it’s a lot. I love it. There are days that are really hard and I’m thankful I was an athlete because I always go back to hey, or when I coached at Indiana State, we took over a team with 50 fans that to the game, and I remember thinking, how are we going to pack this place? How are we going to do this? It seems daunting, but we did it. And I go back to those days and I say, okay, it’s a one day at a time thing. It’s a strategy, but it’s like keep going.
We’ve Been learning keep, you just got to keep the action high and you got to weave in learning and you’re going to get to success.
Ryan Knuppel:
That’s great advice, great advice. Megan Lanham Rithmm, doing some great things in the industry. Megan, I know you’re busy, so I don’t want to keep you too long here, but I have a couple other questions for you. So for people watching that, I don’t know, we had a lot of people in the sports betting industry that are other leaders, other business owners, people doing all sorts of cool things in this industry. What’s one need or one ask, not even an ask, what’s a need you have right now? What are you looking for that maybe somebody listening could potentially help you get there faster? What would that be currently?
Megan Lanham:
I mean, I can tell you what we’re looking for right now. That would be really great. We are looking to have give people like yourself, any type of content provider, we’re giving them access to Rithmm free premium version where you can take that, weave it into your show and have content that’s easily deliverable.
So if there’s anyone out there that needs, that wants access to this, get in touch with me. We can just do kind of a trade and it’s free and go for it. And then we can talk later about how to partner further. That’s one thing that I would say is let’s do something together that we have a lot of sports analysts and things in that nature that are reaching out, wanting access, and we are happy to give it. Number two, if you’re a sports tech startup, reach out to me. There’s so many tools out there. I think there, there’s a path to working together. We don’t need to go into acquisition or merger. There’s a path to hitching together and doing something great.
I’m talking to, certainly I’m having conversations with multiple sports tech startups, but if you’re one of them, give me a call. We have player props coming, so right now we’re traditional betting player. Props are coming. That opens up a whole host of entire new market, and so we want to jump on that. We want to make sure we’re partnering with the right people for this next level of Rithmm.
Ryan Knuppel:
I love that. A couple of things you said there really resonated with me, especially let’s work together and we’ll figure out the details later.
Like that. I love that mindset because a lot of times you get stuck in this like, well, what do I get out of it and what do you get out of it and we don’t know yet. Let’s work together and then we’ll figure all that out. I dunno.
Megan Lanham:
No, that is exactly where I’m at. And I even err even further of just, I mean, maybe you do too. I mean, we both were raised in the Midwest of just like, Hey, handshake it out. Let’s get this going and we’re good people. We’ll deal with that later. And that’s how I functioned in my life and it’s worked out very well.
Ryan Knuppel:
Yep. That’s amazing. That’s awesome. You mentioned getting ahold of you. How would people get ahold of you? What’s the best channel? What’s the best avenue to reach you if they wanted?
Megan Lanham:
Well, super easy. You can just reach out to me via email, so it’s my first name, M-E-G-A-N, at Rithmm, R-I-T-H-M m.com.
That’s the easiest way. Just shoot me a note and we can do something
Ryan Knuppel:
Awesome. I’ll make sure to put that email out in the show notes, that way people can copy it and get ahold of you. If somebody wanted to get the app, how do they get that? Where do they go? Is it shoot out the details?
Megan Lanham:
Very easy. You go on Apple, you can go on Google Play. You can even go to Web. If you go on Apple, you just type in Rithmm, R-I-T-H-M-M or you, same thing on Google, and there you have, you can download it. We’ve been really proud of ourselves that we got this out on three different platforms to give the users everything that they need.
Ryan Knuppel:
Yeah, that’s not an easy task to make happen. Congrats on that.
Megan Lanham:
It’s not, that’s a whole nother show. Oh
Ryan Knuppel:
Yeah. It’s like a series of steps. That’s a good checklist. You got that done. Good job.
Megan Lanham:
Yeah, going through Apple Reviews is, yeah, that’s fun.
Ryan Knuppel:
Always something, that’s for sure. Well, Megan, I’m going to let you go. Any last words, anything we missed? Anything you wanted to say to the audience before we let you go here?
Megan Lanham:
I would just say try it out. It’s 14 days free. This gives you time to build your models to track your betts. There’s a performance tab on there that shows you, Hey, this model’s performing at this level. Here’s your ROI. Here’s your win rate. Here’s where it really works. Maybe it’s really working on the money line. Your other model’s really working on the spread. Try it out. It is not for a hey one week situation. This is what I’m hoping people see is like, let’s change this way of betting of like, oh, just emotionally just hitting like, Hey, I’m putting 25 down on this game. This is a process. It’s a fun process as long as you have data behind it, and give us a try.
Ryan Knuppel:
Awesome. Megan Lanham of Rithmm. Megan, really appreciate your time today. I look forward to seeing your app succeed and look forward to having you on a year down the road and getting an update.
Megan Lanham:
Ryan, thank you so much.
Ryan Knuppel:
All right, take care, Megan. Have a good one.
Megan Lanham:
You too. Bye-Bye.
Ryan Knuppel:
All right. That was Megan Lanham of Rithmm. What an awesome app. We all need help sports betting, no matter what you think, you need a little bit of help, a little bit of guidance, so make sure you go check out that app I played around with it, thought it was pretty cool. I’m going to keep it in my of tools that I use. So really cool stuff. Appreciate you tuning in here today. If you’ve got some value out of this, please let me know in the comments of whatever channel you’re watching this at. I look forward to reading those every single time. Again, I’ll be at SBC Latino America this coming week, so if you’re going to be there, please shoot me a message on LinkedIn. Ryan Knuppel at KNUP, out on all the socials, you can find me. All right, that’s it for today. Until next time, stay safe. Talk to you soon. Enjoy this great sports season. Talk to you soon. bye-bye.
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