How Hotmail Founder Sabeer Bhatia Will Soon Be Giving Competition to Shark Tank Sabeer Bhatia is a name synonymous with Hotmail, now known as Outlook. He co-founded the Hotmail Corporation in 1996, becoming a pioneer in the field of web-based e-mail.
By Kabir Singh Bhandari •
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Sabeer Bhatia is a name synonymous with Hotmail, now known as Outlook. He co-founded the Hotmail Corporation in 1996, becoming a pioneer in the field of web-based e-mail. Hotmail saw a rapid rise and was eventually acquired by Microsoft in 1998. An interesting nugget of information is how the name Hotmail came about. "We were contemplating making email available on the web through a browser. The delivery mechanism for the final content on the page was HTML. So we went through a number of names like Blazemail, Fastmail, Supermail, Hypermail. But Hotmail stood out because it had HTML in it, so HTMLemail is how we finally came to Hotmail," Bhatia tells us over a zoom video call.
But did he ever realize how big it would become? Having worked at Apple Computers Bhatia understood how difficult it was for people to access information on different screens, so when the web browser came along and they were able to access their email accounts through the browser, instinctively he knew that the internet was going to be big and that Hotmail too would grow with it since they were one of the early companies to be founded on the net.
SEE VIDEO: Hotmail Founder Sabeer Bhatia To Launch Shark Tank Like Show
A Bachelors and Masters of Science degree holder from Stanford University, with honours from the California Institute of Technology, he is also a philanthropist, and has supported education efforts such as the re-building of his high school, St. Joseph's Boys High School (Bangalore) and the building of a high-speed Ethernet network at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani. He also supports charities such as Room-to-Read, Home of Hope and the Miracle Foundation.
Nowadays, he is busy being the co-founder and CEO of ShowReel, a video conversation and analytics company that aims to revolutionize entrepreneurship and innovation through the use of short-form video content. "ShowReel is a platform that helps you record your video resume. The content can be varied, it can be a resume, a start-up pitch or it can be a personal showreel that you create. This will be the preferred system in the future as its richer in content, since you can see the person rather than just his CV." Explains Bhatia.
In ShowReel there are preset questions to which you answer, record videos and stitch them together. These questions have been selected as those that are mostly asked in interviews. ShowReel also has a TikTok-like feed where you can browse through and watch videos of other users. You can share these videos with companies you wish to work with and can also add a QR code to your resume that links directly to your ShowReel video.
If you want to market yourself, the traditional way of doing it is to send a paper resume to different job sites or to different companies directly. Alternatively, you could put a QR code in every one of your paper resumes or send an actual video, which says 'This is who I am.' In addition to helping companies speed up the process of interviews, ShowReel is also exploring options for shortlisting candidates for companies. This is also expected to turn into a revenue model for ShowReel where it charges companies for posting jobs on the platform. But end-users and job seekers will never be charged for using the app, which is currently in beta, and is available to download on Android and iOS.
With a billion people being left unemployed due to the pandemic, this concept could become an easier and faster way for them to land a job. However, since its inception, Bhatia's plan for the company has changed, and it has evolved into an entrepreneurship platform, in which entrepreneurs of all kinds can pitch their ideas on the platform itself. If their ideas are good, ShowReel shall fund them, which will take place through blockchain based contracts. "I want to export the Silicon Valley way of thinking to the entire world," expresses Bhatia.
To market and advertise it they are creating a television show around the same concept. Similar to Shark Tank, the objective is to fund a million startups in the next 10 years. "The first episodes we should be able to record before the end of the year. However, this is going to be a completely different concept from the Shark Tank shows. We don't want to be sharks, we are like mentors. It's like KBC meets Shark Tank meets The Voice," says Bhatia, talking about the show.
Clearly, watching him in a new business reality TV show is something to look forward to, and the nature of the show also tells us how the perspective towards entrepreneurship has changed in India since the 90s, when he started Hotmail. Bhatia believes that in today's India, everyone wants to start their own company and aren't keen on the typical 9-5 job, working for 30-40 years and slowly moving up the ladder. That is one change, plus they're seeing success stories within India itself. The third big change is that the millennial generation is globally connected, which is why he believes ShowReel shall have a global appeal.
The author can be reached at bkabir@entrepreneurindia.com and Instagram.com/kabirsinghbhandari
