I think it's a good question I've thought about and discussed a lot.
I'm not sure.
One guess is that heroku actually started with quite a bit less than we now see -- for instance, initially only supported Rails. The bar was so much lower then, since there had been nothing else like it, that they had enough runway to start with much less than would be "table stakes" today and build up to it.
Also they just had a really really really good team, and really good management that let the team go.
And luck maybe?
Not sure what their funding was, if they had funding runway that's hard to get today for a similar product?
But honestly I don't know. There are several competitors trying. None of them have in my opinion yet reached heroku in DX. And it's hard to talk about because it's not just an issue of listing significant features; it's also a million tiny things that are just right and work together just right.
I think it's _something_ about them being the "first mover", and building out initially when there was pretty much nothing like it, and when expectations were lower.
I'm not sure.
One guess is that heroku actually started with quite a bit less than we now see -- for instance, initially only supported Rails. The bar was so much lower then, since there had been nothing else like it, that they had enough runway to start with much less than would be "table stakes" today and build up to it.
Also they just had a really really really good team, and really good management that let the team go.
And luck maybe?
Not sure what their funding was, if they had funding runway that's hard to get today for a similar product?
But honestly I don't know. There are several competitors trying. None of them have in my opinion yet reached heroku in DX. And it's hard to talk about because it's not just an issue of listing significant features; it's also a million tiny things that are just right and work together just right.
I think it's _something_ about them being the "first mover", and building out initially when there was pretty much nothing like it, and when expectations were lower.