Partiful's cross-platform party with Expo

In college, connection is close to inevitable. There are countless opportunities to find a tribe of friends in class, at the dining hall, in the gym, or the library, or the dorms. But mostly, there are parties. People go to parties with the intention to connect. And so it happens.

After college, the parties are harder to find. And since the pandemic, there are even less of them.

And that is why Partiful was founded. Partiful offers social planning software to make it fast and fun to create, promote, and celebrate real-world social events.

The mission of the company is to address the fundamental challenge of making meaningful friendships in adulthood. Partiful is helping to cultivate more opportunities for connection by reducing planning friction, and improving interactions surrounding in-person events.

We see all kinds of different parties every week. There are unique and creative little theme events like puppy parties, water-tasting parties, produce parties, and pickle ball parties. And also some really meaningful events like weddings and vow renewals.

– Joy Tao, Co-Founder & CTO

So how did this small team of talented full stack developers go from web app to app store in just six months? That's where Expo comes in.

Eat, drink, and evaluate cross-platform developer tools

However, these platforms either required a larger team, were not as integrative with React, or necessitated a shift from their existing Typescript preference.

Expo was originally suggested by a friend of Partiful. So they gave it a try and had Expo up and running on a phone in seconds. As an engineering team of React developers they immediately felt comfortable in the React Native Environment. They were also pleased with all the existing libraries to choose from and with the massive community of Expo experts online.

Before breaking ground on their mobile app the team at Partiful expected Expo to help them translate the web app to mobile fairly effortlessly. What they didn't realize at the time was how much more Expo would help them do.

Getting the party started: How Partiful built their iOS app

Partiful's journey with Expo began with an attempt to mirror the web experience in a mobile app. For this team of React developers, with little experience in mobile development, the process went unexpectedly fast. The engineers felt so comfortable in the React Native environment that they started adding features and capabilities to their V1 app. Instead of shipping an MVP, with Expo they could ship an app that they all felt proud of and excited about.

Today the app takes advantage of many tools and services in the Expo ecosystem including:

• EAS Build
• EAS Submit
• EAS Update
• Expo Router
• Notifications
• And tons of Expo libraries including:
  • Contacts
  • Photos
  • Clipboard
  • Calendar
  • Crypto
  • Linear Gradient
  • File System

Expo Router till the cows come home

The team at Partiful was introduced to Expo right when the Expo Router beta was released. At the time they invested energy in Expo Router because it felt exciting. But they were quickly sold on the impact of Deep Linking. Because Partiful began with a web product that they plan to maintain in perpetuity it was important to them that they build universal links. And they were impressed with Expo Router's solution.

For Partiful the universal links are essential because of the way that their service is consumed. When someone creates an event and sends out the link people need to be able to open the link in their preferred platform. At this time, most of those people don't have the app so they'll use the web browser. But some people are opening links in the app and that number will continue to grow as their user base grows.

As a team we're very dedicated to great user experiences. It's super important to us that the experience we deliver our end users is smooth and intuitive.

– Joy Tao, Co-Founder & CTO

Ain't no party like an Expo party

The most surprising thing about using Expo is that we have not had to open Xcode one time since we started building. But that's just one small perk. The real value for us is that Expo has allowed all our engineers to focus on solving problems. Nobody needs to waste time on the messy work of building systems and writing boilerplate code to get something rendered. Expo helps our engineers focus on solving problems and making the product better for our users.

– Alex Chou, Product Engineer

In addition to the efficiency Expo brought to Partiful's engineering org, it also changed the way they thought about hiring. Since they started building with Expo the team has grown from three engineers to ten. Because Expo was so intuitive, it allowed them to continue bringing in React developers that could have an impact immediately.

Key Wins

With Expo, Partiful didn't just migrate; they innovated. Here are some notable victories:

• Seamless Integration: All the necessary native APIs for features like calendar, photos, contacts, and notifications were readily available via Expo.
• Simplified Workflow: Developers never had to access Xcode, and interactions with the app store were streamlined.
• Quick Updates: With EAS update, product iterations became swift, allowing the team to focus more on user experience.

Want to learn more about Partiful? Check out their website or download the app.

For more inspiring developer journeys, visit Expo's customer testimonial page.