I love it when I see people get excited about node.js -- I recently stumbled upon a post by @izs written back in June of 2010, even before our Node Knockout. This one passage really sticks with me, maybe because it's from a JS coder whom I admire but maybe more because it's from a user instead of just a "marketing guy:"

It’s not the fact that it’s fast (it could be a lot slower before it would start to matter), or that I have strong feelings about IO being async (it should be, of course, but I mean, whatever, threads work), or that JavaScript is so great (I like it, but there were other JS platforms out there that were more advanced in a lot of ways).It’s that it was so easy to just download the source, run a command, and have something that works, right away. The example programs are simple, and short, and clear in what they do. When I first started poking at the source code, the mapping from the “lib” folder to the “require” function was easy to grok.

This last part is key. Good products fulfill a need, much like the lower tiers of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, but great products tap into the power of self-actualization. And in this day and age, simplicity and elegance resonate more with people who create beautiful things.

Empowering newcomers is the key to success. That matters more than anything else. I saw the simplicity in what Ryan was trying to do, and that was a huge indicator of future success.