Today we’d like to introduce you to Salar Shahini.
Hi Salar, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I grew up in Iran, started a successful deep tech company in the US at age 23, lived in Istanbul for a while, and now I’m the CEO & Founder of a new venture in the fitness & wellness community space.
I fell in love with entrepreneurship at age 16, when I made pinback buttons with Persian cartoon characters and sold them to my classmates. Eventually, I saved enough money to move to the US for greater opportunities in entrepreneurship. While earning a Masters’s degree in engineering in the US, I created a deep tech application as my thesis to help cities manage their assets. We turned that application into a business and today, it is used in 250+ cities and two countries.
During that time, I constantly moved to new cities, which made it challenging to make new friends. But once I discovered fitness and wellness communities in a new city, I would find friends and inspiration. They always welcomed me with open arms. It didn’t matter if I wasn’t from there or didn’t speak the language very well.
After moving to Austin two years ago, I once again struggled to find these communities. I discovered that these communities don’t have the right tools to grow or get discovered. Now I’m fully focused on making them accessible as the CEO of SweatPals. I am passionate about creating a sense of belonging that everyone is looking for.
People can discover local fitness and wellness communities around them on SweatPals, and community leaders can more easily grow and promote their communities on the SweatPals platform.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
Immigrating to the US was not easy as Iran and the US don’t have a good relationship. It is also very expensive.
During college, I started handmaking pinback buttons with my friends with Persian cartoon characters on them and also tutoring high school kids. That allowed me to save enough money to apply to universities in the US and have enough savings for one semester.
I got accepted for grad school in engineering and moved to Boston, but I needed to get funding. I started working for free for a research group that had an $18MM grant to build deep tech for cities. I eventually grew to be the technical lead of that same project.
After graduating with my Master’s degree in Boston, I started a new startup. I was very excited but had no idea that my worst nightmare was about to come true. After two months of working on my new startup, I had to pack everything and leave my life in the US!
I was asked to leave by the US government because of a mistake in submitting my visa extension request by my school.
The worst part for me was that because of the sanctions against Iran, I couldn’t go there, see my family and work on our American startup.
So I moved to Turkey instead- living there while applying for a new visa. I didn’t have money for lawyers, so I wrote an email to the president of my school with a note about the awards I had won for the school. He asked his lawyers to help me defend my case. I made it back to the US a few months later and was able to grow that startup to expand to 250+ cities and two countries.
Several years later, I started SweatPals because, during all my travels, fitness and wellness communities kept me inspired, helped me find friends, and gave me purpose and things to look forward to. I owe my mental health during any crisis to these communities and I am passionate about helping them grow and succeed and create that sense of belonging that everyone is looking for.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your business?
SweatPals is an operating and networking platform for the fitness & wellness communities. It centralizes communities, people, and events in the fitness and wellness world.
SweatPals also makes these fitness and wellness communities discoverable so if you are looking for a running club, a mindfulness group, a weight-lifting community, or a Volleyball group, you can find them on SweatPals.
In three short months since launching the SweatPals platform, we have gained more than 7,000 followers on social media and thousands of users on our platform.
We are proud of the impact SweatPals already has on our users- these are some of the quotes from our users:
‘I don’t know what I would have done without SweatPals: I just moved to Austin and have met so many friends through SweatPals’
‘I used to be an Olympian athlete. Since the pandemic, I have lost motivation. Through communities on SweatPals, I am once again back to my routine!’
‘I am a fitness trainer and community leader and thinking of all the things I had to do in the past three years that I can now do on one platform… this is a game-changer for me!’
We had a launch party in Austin and more than 600 attendees showed up to celebrate with us- from top wellness creators to local businesses and bigger brands.
Any big plans?
We are expanding to the rest of the US, and soon the world. We are planning bigger events in Austin too so stay tuned for more unique fitness and wellness experiences. To stay up to date with us, download SweatPals app: not only you will find a lot of free or discounted community events, you will also find new friends, find motivation by looking at others’ posts, and can keep track of your fitness and wellness by journaling.
If you are a fitness and wellness entrepreneur or creator, grow your community or feature your events/offerings on SweatPals. Contact us to help walk you through it. You can reach us at hello@sweatpals.com.
Download the app from sweatpalsapp.com
Follow our Instagram for the latest happenings in ATX Fitness and Wellness: https://www.instagram.com/sweatpals_austin/
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.sweatpals.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sweatpals_austin/
Image Credits
SweatPals Inc.
