#duedil

If you picked up a paper today, you will have seen the storm surrounding the FTSE 100 tax ‘dodgers’.  The Guardian, The Telegraph, Metro, and The Independent all reported on the scandle which suggests that some of the FTSE 100 companies are involved in tax evasion.

Duedil, the world’s largest database of free company financials, has just finalised a second round investment from Jonty Hurwitz, the founding CTO of Wonga. Duedil currently offers a vast array of company data for free, and has ambitious plans to revolutionise the way business information is accessed and used.

I took some time to have a good look at the Duedil app yesterday. These guys have been getting quite a bit of good press in the London scene recently and have amassed a bunch of advocates from London startup community, as well as a number of nominations from the Open Coffee lot as one of the top 3 London companies of the moment, in a recent thread.

So, I signed up and had a look. And was really impressed.

If you've never used the Companies House online services (if you can call it that), then you'll be somewhat forgiven for wondering what the hell all the fuss is about. If you have used it, you'll think this is the coolest thing since sliced bread.

OK, now this isn't an app review. 

Instead, I wanted to take a minute to mention my experience, because I would call it that.

On Duedil, they've got a little chat thing that pops up with a fairly welcoming and open ended call to action. Don't know why, but I just felt compelled to type something. I think I just put something like 

Hey guys, just wanted to say well done on the app. Great design and really well executed.

Following that initial comment, I ended up having a very enjoyable little chatter with some dude called Jasper who worked there. I asked about an API (because it would kick ass for mysparebrain) and the response was positive.

I was informed that they've had a lot of interest, they can't say when it'll be ready, but it's coming. Awesome. 

I took it a step further to request something a little more technical. 

Can I request Auth2.0 protocol for Authentication and JSONP for data exchange?

A little silence.

Then Jasper came back, saying he'd spoken with the development team and that it had been added as a feature  / technical request.

Nice Jasper.

Anyway, some general chitter chatter later, I felt very positive towards these guys. There was no sell, no trying to get me to do something, give something, buy something. Just genuinely interested chat.

Very refreshing, compelled to share.