One month from today I was supposed to board a plane, fly to Ukraine, and serve as an education volunteer through the Peace Corps for 27 months – but instead I’m at ACT. Plans change pretty quickly when your future host country turns into a hotbed of political dispute, and you end up loving your summer internship.
Six months ago I couldn’t have predicted where I’d be now, but my new job as ACT’s communications assistant is exactly the right fit. And while I’m happily seated at my desk on K St., there is some good stuff happening in Ukraine right now – ironically from one of our members.
Ukraine-based ACT member Readdle recently celebrated its 7th birthday, and is enjoying a boom of success. Their productivity apps like Scanner Pro and PDF Expert are aimed to save users time, money, and effort – and with a 240 percent annual growth in downloads, they’re definitely doing something right.
Earlier this year, The Verge’s Chris Stokel-Walker traveled to Ukraine to profile the app developers, and got a taste Ukraine’s IT sector. Stokel-Walker reports how Readdle’s success all began with a pocket-sized device that kick started the app economy:
Readdle has always been a focused company. Within weeks of the US release of the original iPhone in 2007, [Readdle co-founders] Alex Tyagulsky and Andrian Budantsov both had one, shipped over by a mutual friend. They loved the devices, but couldn’t believe they weren’t able to do what they’d done for years on their Palm PCs: read books.
Along with two other college friends, Dmitry Protserov and Igor Zhadanov, the foursome hunkered and began to code. After catching Apple’s attention, they launched their first app, ReaddleDocs, as one of the first 500 apps on the App Store in 2008. They quickly gained praise from the likes of Wall Street Journal’s Walt Mossberg, who listed ReaddleDocs as one of his “favorite apps that makes the iPhone worth the price” – and their success grew exponentially from there.
Today, Readdle’s apps have surpassed 33 million total downloads. And what started as a four-man venture in a small Odessa apartment has grown to a company with more than 40 employees and a new office space. Their Scanner Pro app was chosen as Apple’s first “App of The Week” for 2014, and accolades from around the globe quickly followed. Their family of apps for iPhone and iPad continue to be productivity favorites, gaining loyalty from customers worldwide.
So while I’m not headed across the Atlantic to Ukraine anytime soon, it’s encouraging to see the success that Readdle and the Ukrainian IT sector has enjoyed. It may not make daily headlines, but there are good things happening in Ukraine.
Image: Marcin Bajer / license