Saturn which remains in a house for two and half years would have completed nearly full circle of all twelve zodiac signs since Shabeer Bhatia, once the most eligible Indian bachelor in the world who was rumoured to have dated Miss World Aishwarya Rai, sold his web-based e-mail service by the name of Hotmail to Microsoft for a whopping 400 million dollars when he was just 30.
Sabeer might be hoping his stars to be appropriately stationed, just the way it did almost a quarter century ago as he is back in the business with his new venture called ShowReel. Inspired by the huge response from the users for video based social media apps, ShowReel intends to tap it to use it for job seekers’ needs by enabling them to present themselves via video in the job market. It will have users making short video profiles by responding to a set of 8-9 recorded questions in a conversation format. Basic aim of the app is to be a bridge between jobseekers and prospective employees.
This is not first venture Shabeer Bhatia has started since his phenomenal success of Hotmail. Soon after leaving Microsoft where he worked after selling off Hotmail, Shabeer Bhatia had started Arzoo Inc, an e-commerce firm. He had also started a free messaging service called JaxtrSMS claiming it to be a disruptive technology, which would do to SMS what Hotmail did for e-mail.
ShowReel will not be competing with LinkedIn but will co-exist, asserts Bhatia saying that he is aware of the fact that even on LinkedIn one can upload videos. For Shabeer Bhatia, the idea to set up the platform was born after pandemic where millions of people lost jobs. The format of short video with questions is expected to provoke a more natural response as compared to other apps. The questions will have the possibility of customisation once the app grows.
ShowReel can help startup founders for pitching their ideas. It has plans in future to leverage AI to analyze collected data and expand to areas such as healthcare. ShowReel at present has around 15 employees, with the development team in Kochi.
At present self-funded, The ShowReel venture has plans to raise financing in the future. Co-founded by Bhatia and Aji Abraham, the ShowReel revenue model will have the potential employers paying the bill for the platform to get them potential employees. It is banking upon lowered cost of hiring and larger reach to the talent pool for success.
