Partyverse was starting from zero and wanted a product that felt alive. A place where anyone could plan something for their circle without friction or fear. I led the design of the very first experience, shaping the flows, the visuals and the personality of the app from the ground up.

Planning an event in Nigeria is a headache. Most celebrations — birthdays, link-ups, housewarmings, engagements — are supposed to be joyful, but they often felt like logistical nightmares. Existing tools never really fit the way we do things. They felt stiff, generic, far removed from how Nigerians actually plan and celebrate, or just incomplete.

As a culture, we love to party. But the people organizing these moments, from brides and planners to friends hosting something small for their guys, were dealing with stress that quietly stole from the joy they were trying to create. We wanted to change that. Not just by removing friction for people who already plan, but by lowering the barrier to entry so anyone could decide to host something without fear.

Our goal was to simplify the entire process — planning, collaboration, payments, tracking, vendor sourcing — while keeping all the energy, color and magic that makes Nigerian celebrations what they are. We wanted a planning experience that felt vibrant, shareable and fun, without losing clarity or control.

From the on-set, Partyverse sought to be scalable. We wanted an experience that felt tailored to you, whether you were hosting a games night with five of your guys, planning a wedding, or putting together a detty december concert line up. We wanted an interface that could be as lean or as robust as your needs required them to be.

We iterated on a lot of options; but ultimately, I loved the idea of a modular event board: a dark, flexible home interface where users add “blocks” or “cards” for each features and the event grows as they add more, creating a customizable, modular, and visual event page. As a bonus, it felt fresh. Like an instantly recognizable fingerprint for the app.

Working on Partyverse taught me a few important lessons.

Partyverse worked because it was designed with real Nigerian event planning in mind. How things actually happen, not how apps assume they do.

That thinking shaped features like Event Location. Instead of relying only on map pins, we added a full address field, knowing places are often described by landmarks and Maps can be unreliable. It also shaped gifting. Guests can convert gifts to cash, added straight to their event wallet with a thank-you note, because in our culture, that part matters.

Partyverse moved fast, and the iteration didn’t stop after launch. It became clear early on that in trying to make everyone a planner, we’d focused too much on hosts. The people who actually bring events to life — attendees, partygoers, the “I’m just here to enjoy” crowd — didn’t have much to do in the product.

We went back to the drawing board. That led to Partyverse, a space to discover trending events, and Memories, a shared gallery that lets moments live on through everyone else’s perspective.

Around the same time, while planning Design Is Not Dead Lagos across iMessage, WhatsApp, and Partyverse, we noticed another gap. Groups needed a place to talk inside the app. That insight turned into Chat, so planning and coordination never have to leave Partyverse.

At the time of this case study, Partyverse was on Build 310. Across 310 iterations, many ideas were explored, tested, and ultimately cut. We’d spend weeks on a feature, only to realise right before or after launch that it didn’t align with the mission or the moment — and we rolled it back immediately. No ego, no hesitation. Just honest evaluation. We tried, it didn’t work, and we moved forward.

This has always been my mantra. We did a lot of research and testing to get Partyverse to where it is today, but the north star never changed — planning should feel as fun as the event it leads to.

You can see this everywhere: in the branding, the avatars, the splash screens, the shareable RSVP pages, even the tone of voice on social media. My favourite feedback has been people saying, “This app just feels fun.” That’s exactly what we wanted.

Well, that’s a lot of talk about process, teams, and lessons. But now it’s time for the part I enjoy the most — the end result.

View my full portfolio: www.ajanwachuku.work

Cheers.