Denys Zhadanov:

Why can I talk about the App Store so confidently? I have spent the last decade heading Marketing and Strategy operations at Readdle. Readdle is one of the few product companies out there that has had a presence in the App Store from the beginning and has built a successful business around it. If you have an iPhone, you’ve probably used our Documents, Spark, and Scanner Pro apps. We’ve been an independent company throughout this decade, without raising external funding; and over 100M people have downloaded our apps. Our 135 person team has built more than 40 products. 32 of them failed, but we didn’t give up.

And:

By the way, our service was available on iPhones before the App Store launched in 2008, a year after the original iPhone went on sale.

And:

Then, the call that changed our lives for good.

It was a call from the Apple HQ in Cupertino. We were sitting in Odessa when a voice over the phone briefed us, “We’re launching the App Store soon. Here’s a deadline, build an app, and maybe we’ll add it to the App Store.”

I love this story. If you are interested in the evolution of the App Store or have ever considered writing an app of your very own, put your feet up and dig in. Who better to talk App Store success than someone who was there from day one?