No single mold can hold me.
I’m Sarah Zarei. I studied psychology, I write, and for years I’ve been building and experiencing businesses.
About Me
My path was never a straight, pre-drawn line. Psychology, writing, studying people, generating ideas and building businesses have all been parts of one journey for me: trying to understand people, and turning that understanding into something real and useful.
Psychology is more than an academic field to me
I’m drawn to human behavior: the choices people make, what they want, the fears that hold them back, the contradictions inside them, and the paths they choose to build a different life.
That’s why, alongside psychology, I’ve always been pulled toward business and entrepreneurship.
To me, these two fields aren’t that far apart.
Every business ultimately deals with people: their needs, their decisions, their experience, and the problem we want to solve for them.
Writing is another part of this path
My novel An Herfe-ye Khas (“That Particular Profession”) grew out of this same way of seeing: a story about identity, choice, ambition, doubt and loss, and about people trying to find their own place in life.
Alongside it, writing about the lives and paths of different people is another way for me to think about psychology and human behavior.
I’m especially interested in people who can’t be summed up in one job title or one conventional path (multipotentialites): people with many interests and abilities, for whom that very multiplicity is often both their greatest asset and their greatest challenge.
What I do today
Much of my time and energy today goes into building and growing businesses that, to me, are not just “a company” but a chance to solve a real problem.
At Jahan Ayandeh Shimi, as co-founder and CEO, I work on developing an industrial business and solutions in advanced materials, including graphene and graphene-based additives.
With Dastpa, drawing on my own experience of migration, I set out to solve a different problem: how to make part of the presence and everyday tasks of Iranians living abroad simpler and more trustworthy back in Iran.
Alongside these projects, I keep writing, keep thinking about and researching the psychology of multipotentialites, and collaborate with people and businesses in the areas where I have experience and expertise.
But maybe that’s not the whole story
If I had to introduce myself with a single title, one title probably wouldn’t be enough to explain everything I care about.
I started psychology at university, but carried it on through my books and writing. Later I entered the business world and discovered that many of the questions I had about people reappear in the real world of building a product, a company or an experience.
That’s why I don’t think of this website as just a personal site, either.
It’s a place for the things I build, the things I write, the people I think about, and the ideas that are still taking shape.
If any of these paths interests you too, I’d be glad to get to know each other better.