The story behind Zand

A place to come home to

How a question about identity became a platform for an entire diaspora.

Zand started with a gap. Not a market gap — a personal one. We grew up outside of Iran, with parents who talked about the country they'd left but always stopped short of the full story. There was a world behind our identity that we could sense but couldn't access.

When you have conversations about a historical event or a cultural shift, you realise how much there is to learn. And the more we learnt, the more we saw how much we hadn't been taught about our own country. We started to wonder how many other Iranians felt the same way.

“Before you can understand what is happening to a country, you have to understand its story.”

The turning point

In late 2025 and early 2026, as protests and conflict brought Iran back into global headlines, we watched something happen among Iranians around the world. A collective reaction that crossed generations and geography. People were confronting what it meant to be Iranian in a way most of them hadn't before.

We kept thinking about the ones who were like us — people who felt they were supposed to understand something they had never actually been taught. The information we were looking for was scattered everywhere, if you knew where to look at all. Most people didn't.

زند

What Zand is

Zand is a place where being Iranian can mean whatever it means to you. You can learn Persian in a way that actually works — not a translation of a Western language app, but something built for how Farsi is actually spoken and read. You can explore Iranian history through original sources, not summaries. You can discover the culture beyond what makes the news. The culture is always there, woven through everything, but it never feels like a lesson. You pick it up from curiosity and put it down having learned something about Iran without realising it.

It's not a political project. It doesn't tell anyone what to think about Iran. It gives people the tools to think, question, and learn — and to form their own relationship with it. You are rooted somewhere you may have never lived. You are living somewhere that is not your root. Zand holds both.

The right voice

There was one piece we knew we couldn't build alone. If Zand was going to represent Iran, the people already living it had to be part of it. That's why the partnership with The Persian Mag matters. TPM has a following of over 150,000 and an editorial voice rooted in the Iran that exists right now — its artists, creators, and emerging talent. Their world became part of Zand's, so the platform doesn't just talk about Iran. It shows you what Iran is making today.

Locals

Then there's the Iranian world being built all around us. Zand has a section called Locals — a directory where Iranian-owned businesses anywhere in the world can be found. A restaurant in Brooklyn, a carpet showroom in Dubai, a bakery in London. It gives business owners a place to be seen and gives the community a way to find and support them.

Together, these pieces are what make Zand feel complete. A place where you can learn something in five minutes or disappear into a subject for five hours. Where you can hear your language, find a Persian restaurant in a city you've never visited, or feel a little more connected to something that has always been part of you.

“We know what it’s like to feel curious about a part of yourself and not quite know where to begin. So we wanted to build the place we wish we had growing up.”

The Zand Team