There's a fundamental categorization mistake that the author makes, which is:<p>If you think of yourself as a "mobile app developer", you've already lost. You're a commodity, just like the other 4 million app developers.<p>Instead, you need to think of yourself in terms of the industry your app <i>services</i>, not the technology used to accomplish it. You're a transportation network that's coordinated through your mobile phone. You're a personal shopper that you call through your phone. You're a way to share moments with your close friends.<p>If you do this, your growth strategy becomes "Make yourself valuable enough that people see their friends or competitors using you and want in on a piece of the action." It's completely independent of what Apple & Google decide to feature in the app store. It's harder because you can't just write some code and put it out there, but also a lot more under control of the entrepreneur.<p>And there are still <i>plenty</i> of opportunities where the widespread deployment of mobile phones gives you an opportunity to do things 10x more efficiently than how they're done now.