Prof G Markets: First Time Founders — How Partiful Is Fixing the Loneliness Crisis
April 4, 2026
Guests: Shreya Murthy (CEO & Co-Founder, Partiful), hosted by Ed Elson

Episode Overview

This episode of "Prof G Markets: First Time Founders" dives into the story behind Partiful, a fast-rising events platform transforming how young people gather in person. Ed Elson interviews Shreya Murthy, Partiful’s CEO and Co-Founder, exploring the product’s origins amid rising social isolation, its experience launching during the pandemic, and the design philosophy that keeps it ahead of Big Tech copycats. Key topics include the loneliness crisis, building authentic community through offline events, navigating product-market fit, and the hard lessons of first-time entrepreneurship.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Partiful’s Mission and Cultural Impact

• What Is Partiful and Why It Matters:

  • “Partiful is the easiest way to get together in real life. It is a platform available on app and web, where you can plan any kind of event, invite friends, figure out who’s going, and communicate seamlessly with guests. And so at its core, it’s a social utility. But what it’s become is a cultural phenomenon…” – Shreya Murthy [02:39]
  • The app has millions of users in 100+ countries, gaining traction especially with Gen Z and young millennials for organizing parties and social gatherings.

• Becoming a Cultural Phenomenon:

  • Partiful reached “noun status” (“You send a Partiful”) – similar to Uber or Band-Aid – signifying deep cultural penetration.
  • “We’re name dropped on an HBO show…everyone’s using Partiful as a noun. There are very few consumer products that get to that point.” – Shreya [03:35]

2. Solving Loneliness & The Role of In-Person Socializing

• Motivation for Building Partiful:

  • “I was going through a quarter-life crisis… The biggest problem…was this trend towards social isolation. It had become so easy to get addicted to your phone…harder to step into the real world and find real connection. …If we can make it way easier to plan parties, we can unlock this really important engine of real-world social connection.” – Shreya [07:22]
  • Emphasized how parties aren’t just about fun – they’re engines for building broader, authentic community.

• Screens vs. Real-World Connection:

  • “Before we had screens…the way that we would entertain ourselves is by connecting with other people…what we started losing was that social aspect of entertainment.” – Shreya [10:06]
  • Partiful’s design is a counterpoint to digital isolation, encouraging users to “access the real world” via their phones.

3. Product Design: Why Group Chats “Suck” for Planning

• Beyond Group Chats:
  • “You were in a noisy group chat…There’s a limit to how many people you can even have…everyone’s dropped into a group chat with a bunch of strangers, it’s noisy, info is not relevant…We literally built a page for everyone to be on…real utility for hosts to always know who’s coming, be able to send a message to all guests and not worry about annoying people.” – Shreya [05:19]

4. The Pandemic: Launching Against the Odds

• Starting During COVID-19:

  • The company officially started in March 2020, right as lockdowns began.
  • “Our first ever official meeting…was just Joy and I rolling out of bed in our pajamas and turning on Zoom and being like, what do we do?” – Shreya [16:18]
  • Early testing: Forced to get creative and test for virtual and COVID-safe outdoor gatherings only.

• Surviving The Virtual Event Hype:

  • “…there were these virtual event startups that were raising hundreds of millions of dollars at insane valuations. And we felt very gaslit. …Are we crazy?... The thing that kept us going was…feedback from our users and our own understanding of human behavior…The human brain is hardwired for real-world connection.” – Shreya [24:14]

• Product Growth Post-Vaccine:

  • Summer 2021 saw organic, word-of-mouth growth as in-person gathering rebounded.
  • “It went from certainly not growing at all to a very steady, noticeable climb…which has never stopped since then.” – Shreya [28:15]

5. Competing With Big Tech: Product, Brand, and “Fun” as Moat

• Beating Apple to the Punch:

  • Apple released a competitor (“Apple Invites”), but it flopped.
  • “I haven’t received a single Apple invite, which to me is a testament, I think, to product quality. There’s something about this product that is fun…Even the way that it communicates to you…” – Ed [29:30]

• Building Delightful Software:

  • “Our engineers and designers will spend so much time thinking about an individual flow, an individual screen, where are we placing the buttons…How easy is it for the user to understand what to do next? …We pour our heart and soul into building Partiful…we take our own user experience…and pour that into every product decision.” – Shreya [30:23]

• Culture of Creativity and Fun:

  • “We hire incredibly creative people and we let them loose on the product…We don’t have a set of copy rules that we follow…just talk as though you were talking to a friend…Just unleash the creative potential…organisationally limiting the amount of rules that you apply…” – Shreya [33:48]

• Downside of “No Rules”:

  • “Of course there are downsides…When a really fun idea does get killed…every organisational decision comes with a cost…but we’ve just found that the benefits vastly outweigh the costs.” – Shreya [37:14]

6. Business Model & The Road to Monetization

• Why It’s Still Free:

  • “There’s just a limit to physically how much we can do…We’ve always had so much demand from users…we’ve just been overwhelmed with things to build on our roadmap that don’t happen to involve monetization…” – Shreya [42:34]
  • Monetization model must be directly aligned with user benefit, not extractive:
    • “We will never sell user data. That is just a hard line for us. …Our product is to get you off the phone and into the real world. …We couldn’t monetize those eyeballs even if we wanted to.” – Shreya [44:40]

• No Ads—Ever:

  • “It just wouldn’t work with the way our product works because we don’t optimize on time spent.” – Shreya [44:40]
  • Admiration for Strava’s paid, user-value-aligned model.

• OpenAI/Ads Tangent:

  • “When your soul is being bared to a product in that way, you have to take that with a much higher degree of responsibility…” – Shreya [46:54]

7. The Future: Beyond Parties

• Vision: Powering All Real-World Moments:

  • “Our vision is to power everything you do in the real world with your friends…making all your real-world moments as meaningful as possible…public events, curated discovery, supporting communities and recurring groups (book clubs, volunteer groups, etc).” – Shreya [48:14]

• “Discover” Feed:

  • Carefully curated local events and experiences, using human curation for quality, not just algorithmic recommendations.

• Making “Offline” as Seamless as Online:

  • “It’s a really hard thing to do because…coordinating with people, meeting up with people…it simply is a hard thing. So making that an easy thing is a very bold and difficult task.” – Ed [51:49]

8. Startups, Lessons & Advice for Founders

• The Emotional Toll:

  • “Starting a company is the hardest thing that I’ve ever done…When it’s so hard, the rebuttable presumption is to not do it. Like, doing literally anything else would be not just easier, but would probably make more money.” – Shreya [52:18]

• Passion and Founder-Market Fit:

  • “Be incredibly passionate about whatever you’re building…There’s so much fragility in it…You have to have some passion and true belief that keeps you going in your darkest moments.” – Shreya [52:18]
  • On finding ideas: “Solve a problem that you feel personally…Build for yourself. Then take the leap of faith that other people feel the same way that you do.” – Shreya [54:26]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Partiful’s name recognition:
  “You don’t send an invite—you send a Partiful.” – Shreya [03:35]

• On competing with Apple:
  “I haven’t received a single Apple invite, which to me is a testament…to product quality.” – Ed [29:30]

• On product philosophy:
  “The truth is that what makes Particle so incredible is that our team is obsessive about every little detail and making that detail frictionless and delightful.” – Shreya [30:23]

• On company values:
  “We hire incredibly creative people and we let them loose on the product…When you hire incredibly creative people and you give them that kind of freedom, you’re allowing great things to happen…” – Shreya [33:48]

• On product alignment with users:
  “How can we win when our users win?” – Shreya [42:34]

• On ads and user trust:
  “Your soul is being bared to a product in that way, you have to take that with a much higher degree of responsibility…” – Shreya [46:54]

• On startup advice:
  “Build for yourself…center in your own problems and your own truth. …If you solve those problems really well, there will be at least some other people out there who feel the same way.” – Shreya [54:26]

Key Timestamps for Important Segments

• [02:39] – What is Partiful & how it caught on culturally
• [05:19] – Why Partiful is better than group chats for events
• [07:22] – Shreya’s personal motivation for building the company
• [16:18] – Founding Partiful as the world shut down
• [24:14] – Navigating the virtual event boom and sticking to in-person
• [28:15] – The post-pandemic boom and organic growth
• [30:23] – Partiful’s obsessive product philosophy
• [33:48] – How to build a “fun” organizational culture
• [42:34] – Monetization strategy and why no ads
• [48:14] – The future: beyond parties & powering all real-world connections
• [52:18] – Lessons from first-time founding & advice for aspiring entrepreneurs
• [54:26] – How to find your startup idea

Summary Takeaway

This conversation drills into why Partiful has succeeded where even tech giants have struggled: by nailing emotional resonance, obsessive user-centric design, and fostering a culture where “fun” and “delight” drive product. Partiful’s vision is not just to make parties easier—but to power all meaningful real-world gatherings, addressing the loneliness crisis by making offline connection feel as easy and rewarding as digital scrolling. Shreya Murthy’s story is also a parable on founder resilience, trust in one’s intuition, and the staying power of products that feel “authentic” to both builder and user.