Iranian ladies who launch

Iran’s new crop of female entrepreneurs worry what the lifting of sanctions will mean for their businesses

The World Today Updated 11 December 2020 3 minute READ

Helen Fitzwilliam

Journalist and Filmmaker, Freelance

‘I knew my business was a success when after 12 months I no longer had to take my father, posing as the CEO, with me to every meeting in order to be taken seriously.’

Nazanin Daneshvar, below, is one of a growing number of women who have created start-ups in Tehran despite being cut off from the world by sanctions. While she was working in Berlin as a software developer on a deal-of-the-day website she had the idea of creating an Iranian version. She knew Iranians in the middle of an economic crisis would love a bargain.

The 26-year-old and her sister, working from her parents’ dining room, set up takhfifan.com, which offers discounts on everything from restaurants and hotels to concert tickets and coffee houses.

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