For Salesforce ISV partners, there’s a constant tension between building for scale and developing deep expertise on the platform. Most companies hedge their bets, building applications that work across multiple platforms to maximize their addressable market. But what if focusing exclusively on Salesforce—being truly native—could become a competitive advantage instead of a limitation?
Fastcall bet its entire business on this approach. For 12 years, it’s developed voice and messaging capabilities that work only within Salesforce, refusing to dilute its focus by chasing support for other platforms. This commitment to being Salesforce-native has become Fastcall’s unique selling proposition, and Heroku has been instrumental in making that strategy scale.
From accidental ISV to Salesforce-native champion
Fastcall’s journey into the Salesforce ecosystem happened by accident. The company originally launched as a consumer voice directory assistance application, competing in a space that would eventually evolve into today’s voice agents and AI assistants. When that venture didn’t gain traction, it pivoted to consulting work that happened to involve Salesforce.
During one consulting project 15 years ago, the company needed to know if Salesforce users were available to receive phone calls, essentially replicating what Salesforce Omni Channel does today. So Fastcall built a simple soft phone using Salesforce-to-Salesforce, a somewhat unconventional API that connected different Salesforce orgs. The Fastcall team affectionately says the solution was held together with sweat and duct tape, but it worked.
When the soft phone project wrapped up, Fastcall made a fateful decision: put the little soft phone on Salesforce AppExchange. At the time, Fastcall had no billing capability, so the app was free. Users would create their own Twilio accounts and connect them to the application to make outbound calls. This was before Salesforce had Open CTI, so Fastcall used a hack: searching web pages for the word “phone” and enabling calls to any phone number found. Each time it added a new language, Fastcall had to learn the word for phone in that language and add it to the application.
How being Salesforce-native is Fastcall’s competitive advantage
What at first seemed like a limitation—building only for Salesforce—gradually became Fastcall’s greatest strength. As reviews and installations came in from around the world, the team started asking subscribers why they preferred Fastcall. The answer was clear: customers wanted something built exclusively for Salesforce.
Fastcall realized its competitors were spreading themselves thin. When a customer visits a competitor’s website and sees 50 different platform logos, only one matters to a Salesforce user: Salesforce. Those competitors were dividing their development resources across multiple integrations, which meant less focus on making their Salesforce experience truly exceptional.
Even venture capitalists told Fastcall that building an application that only works in Salesforce was the wrong strategy. VCs invested in competitors who promised to support 20 different platforms. But Fastcall held firm in its conviction: in enterprise software, Salesforce is the company that matters, and trying to differentiate across 20 platforms is a losing battle.
The native approach delivers benefits beyond just product focus. It aligns Fastcall with Salesforce’s product roadmap. When Salesforce launched Open CTI, Fastcall adapted. When Lightning came, Fastcall was ready. As Salesforce introduces Agentforce and other innovations, Fastcall moves in lockstep, currently supporting both Agentforce Sales and Agentforce Service. Being native means moving with Salesforce, not trying to catch up from the outside.
It’s not just what the partner can solve today. You need to realize that in January, you’re going to have a new set of problems. In April, you’ll have a new set of problems. Can that partner solve the problems that you’re going to encounter in the future? We think that a native developer is moving along with Salesforce.
Scaling up for enterprise: the move to Heroku
As Fastcall’s application evolved from a simple outbound calling tool to a full-featured phone system with inbound call routing, messaging, and complex user availability logic, it knew it would need a new solution that could accommodate the complexity and scale.
When it came time to choose a new infrastructure solution, Fastcall didn’t need to evaluate multiple options: as a Salesforce-first developer, Heroku was the best choice. This decision aligned perfectly with their unique selling proposition: they shop in the Salesforce store. Why would Fastcall ask subscribers to trust Salesforce and then use non-Salesforce infrastructure?
The team also appreciated that Heroku, despite not being considered “native” in Salesforce’s technical definition, is owned by Salesforce. Subscribers will recognize and trust that connection. As Salesforce continues to deepen Heroku’s integration with the core platform, Fastcall expects to gain capabilities it couldn’t access with AWS or another provider.
We always want to look to Salesforce technologies. In this case, with Heroku, we did not look anywhere else because it’s owned by Salesforce, and our subscribers will recognize that.
Heroku powers real-time voice and messaging at scale
Fastcall built its new infrastructure on Heroku using Node.js to handle real-time communications, including voice calls and messaging. Heroku Dynos are used for app hosting, initially on the common runtime before upgrading to Private Dynos for enhanced security and performance. Heroku Postgres manages its data layer, while Heroku Key-Value Store provides critical caching capabilities.
The performance improvements have been dramatic. Early results show 5-10X faster response times compared to the previous solution. This improvement isn’t just about speed; it’s also about reliability and user experience. Timeouts that could impact high-volume call routing have been eliminated, and the system can now handle the real-time demands of enterprise voice communications.
Perhaps more importantly, Heroku transformed how Fastcall delivers updates to subscribers. As a Salesforce ISV with a managed package, releasing new features traditionally required a lengthy process: packaging the release, getting subscribers to install it in their organizations, and coordinating upgrades. With Heroku, Fastcall can push changes instantly. Updates deploy with minimal (close to zero) downtime as Heroku handles the restart of Dynos seamlessly. This agility has become a significant competitive advantage, allowing Fastcall to respond to customer needs and fix issues faster than ever before.
Using Heroku to win enterprise deals without a DevOps team
The move to Heroku came just in time for Fastcall’s largest opportunity to date: onboarding a customer with nearly 1,000 users. This enterprise account had been using Microsoft Teams for voice communications, but Teams wasn’t integrated with their new Salesforce implementation and lacked mobile capabilities. The company’s management team faced a challenge: 1,000 salespeople were using personal mobile phones with no access to Salesforce data or CRM context.
Fastcall worked with a system integrator to win the deal by offering a Salesforce-native solution with strong mobile capabilities and SMS functionality. But the team knew their existing infrastructure couldn’t handle this scale. They needed Heroku.
For a small company like Fastcall, Heroku has been transformational. Without it, they would need a dedicated DevOps team to maintain infrastructure, manage scaling, and handle security. With Heroku, they can purchase the add-ons they need and focus their engineering resources on building product features instead of managing servers.
For a small company like us, we would need a DevOps team to maintain all the infrastructure. With Heroku, we just purchase the add-ons we need. The overall experience with Heroku for us is positive. It’s a complementary tool.
Heroku and native infrastructure reduces security risk for enterprise buyers
Security plays a critical role in Fastcall’s sales process, particularly with large enterprise accounts. The team asks subscribers a straightforward question: Is Salesforce important to you? When the answer is yes—and it usually is—Fastcall emphasizes that a native application allows customers to extend their existing trust in Salesforce to Fastcall.
This becomes increasingly important as Fastcall pursues larger enterprise opportunities. IT departments at major corporations are looking to reduce risk, not add it. When evaluating telephony solutions, having fewer components outside the Salesforce ecosystem becomes a significant advantage. One recent deal with a division of a large automotive manufacturer required strict security reviews; they wouldn’t consider any applications with browser plug-ins. Fastcall won because of their native story.
Looking ahead with Heroku: Voice, video, and AI-powered communications
Fastcall’s product roadmap has always been subscriber-driven, ensuring its platform can invoke calls from any application, including those built on Heroku. As communication evolves across voice, video, and AI agents, Fastcall specializes in complex handoffs, routing customers from AI to the right human by effectively managing availability, queuing, and routing. This is important because Fastcall’s subscribers sell high-value products (million-dollar homes, enterprise software, complex B2B solutions) that require human involvement. Fastcall makes AI-human collaboration seamless. Heroku provides the platform flexibility to rapidly adopt new AI capabilities and integrate them into Salesforce workflows.
Fastcall is also watching Heroku AppLink, which enables Heroku apps to integrate into Salesforce without OAuth authentication using installed metadata. Though not yet available for managed packages and ISV partners, this feature could further reduce integration complexity for subscribers.
For other Salesforce ISV partners facing similar scaling challenges, Fastcall’s experience offers a clear recommendation: Heroku is the natural choice when you need to move beyond the limitations of your existing platform while maintaining alignment with the Salesforce ecosystem.
Fastcall’s journey from a simple outbound calling tool to a comprehensive enterprise communication platform shows what’s possible when you stay true to your core platform and choose infrastructure that aligns with your values. Being native isn’t a limitation—it’s a strategic advantage. And with Heroku, that native approach can scale to meet any opportunity.
Launch your next project with Heroku
How Fastcall did it
- Heroku Platform for developing their voice and messaging API
- Heroku Dynos for running Node.js applications, handling real-time voice and messaging
- Heroku Private Spaces for enhanced security and performance
- Heroku Postgres for database management
- Heroku Key-Value Store for caching and session management
- Heroku AppLink for streamlined Salesforce integration (possible future implementation)
