This DreamIt Ventures startup knows you’re geeking out over Pretty Little Liars

DreamIt Ventures was halfway over when Jessica McGlory decided to scrap her initial product — predictive analytics for TV ratings — and start over.

It was a little scary, said McGlory, 24. There were just four weeks before demo day, and then a week-long trip across the country to pitch venture capitalists.
But the feedback she collected was undeniable. Network TV execs didn’t know a thing about how young people interacted with TV. McGlory’s talking about “fandoms,” where viewers are going one step further than tweeting about what happened on a show. They’re creating gifs, writing fanfiction and theorizing on Tumblr. When she spoke to TV execs about these subcultures, they were excited about the possibilities.
Plus, DreamIt partner William Crowder couldn’t help but notice how McGlory lit up when she talked about fandoms. You should build a business on what you’re passionate about, he said.
So McGlory, with the help of CTO Ross Edwards and designer Daniel Pope, got to work building a ratings engine, like Nielsen, for fandoms. Meet Forecastr.

TV networks can use Forecastr the way they use Nielsen and social media analytics — to get a better handle on their fans — and use that data to negotiate for higher advertising and distribution rates, McGlory said. Forecastr, which uses programming language R and the Tumblr API to sift through and categorize reams of fandom data, captures the “long tail” of fan engagement, she said.
Instead of just focusing on who’s watching what (the way Nielsen does) or who’s tweeting about a show, Forecastr tracks how fans are engaging with a show long after they’ve watched an episode. Case in point: the most popular fandom, according to McGlory, is for the original Dr. Who, which aired from the ’60s to ’90s. (McGlory’s fandoms? Pretty Little Liars, MTV’s Faking It, for which she runs a Tumblr with 2,000 followers, and Hey Arnold.)
She also envisions networks using Forecastr to aid in the creative process, where networks turn to the data to see if fans like certain storylines.
This summer, TV networks will test the product for free. McGlory, a self-taught programmer who interned at nearly a dozen networks before starting Forecastr, hopes to perfect the product before charging for it. She’s currently closing a round of funding and looking to hire more team members (Edwards, her CTO, recently left the company). McGlory, who grew up in Detroit and went to college in Chicago, moved from Los Angeles for DreamIt Ventures and said she’s pretty sure she’ll stay in Philadelphia.