TrendPo, the big data analytics startup for politics, launches its
signature product in invite-only beta today. The company, founded by J.D. Chang, is also announcing Maxwell Lipnick as an angel investor and is looking to hire four additional team members over the summer.
In addition to being an investor, Lipnick is now heading up the Startups/Small Business division for TrendPo, says Chang. That division is an expansion for TrendPo, which has focused exclusively on political data since its inception in 2012.
TrendPo, which just "graduated" from Fortify Ventures's accelerator program, measures and ranks politicians and presents the information in a highly readable format. As Chang explains, traditional polls usually require four days to turn raw data into usable analytics that politicians, campaign managers and political organizations can act on. Since TrendPo tracks political data daily, culled from social media sites and "thousands of online news channels," politicians can "see how they're doing against anyone else in [their delegation] in 30 seconds."
TrendPo's signature product, the TrendPo Front Page, is a daily one-page PDF summary designed for a particular customer. It captures the customer's most influential Facebook post, tweet, YouTube link and news story. If customers are politicians, TrendPo ranks them against their peer group in terms of buzz and sentiment analysis.
"For the past five to 10 years, big data was about getting as much data as you can," Chang explains. "Now, the cost has gone down. The challenge isn't to get data. The challenge is to interpret the data for the customer. [With TrendPo,] you don't have to go to a dashboard. There are no widgets. We give you so much data on one piece of paper. We save time and make you more efficient." Prior to launching the Front Page, TrendPo used a dashboard format; the new product is leaner.
TrendPo uses Facebook, Twitter and YouTube as data sources because according to Chang, they are the three outlets most adopted by members of Congress. "We can add a new data source if [politicians] start trending that way," he says.
Chang will be looking to add four to the TrendPo team this summer: two in sales, a project manager and a data scientist with a background in statistics and politics. "If we grow faster, we'll hire more in sales," he says. "And we're always looking for great developers. We will find space [for them]."
TrendPo will open its private beta to the public in about two weeks.