I initially learnt Erlang to write websocket backends for browser-based games. Then found Elixir and moved on to it. I still work with the same stuff that OTP offers, along with a lot of sugary features that Elixir and it's community provides.

The Erlang syntax might be weird at first. But you'll get used to it.

Pattern matching for function arguments is a life-saver. Erlang also runs checks on your module when it gets compiled. It tells you if vars are being used or not, etc. Very handy IMHO.

The best side-effect of the concurrency model, is that your production environment, apart from config vars, will be almost same as your development environment. Unlike most languages today, you won't need a separate server program (Unicorn, Thin, Passenger, etc). You don't have to put your app behind nginx or apache. Use Cowboy (or alternatives), which is a server library for Erlang. I'll take care of stuff for you.

I write some Elixir libraries in my spare time http://github.com/HashNuke