Sabeer Bhatia, who was born in Chandigarh, Punjab, to an army officer father and a banker mother, had always aspired to be an army officer. However, he later became interested in science after being introduced to it. Sabeer experienced sadness following his IIT test appearance.
He was absent from IIT. by a few spots and enrolled as an electrical engineering student at BITS Pilani instead. He was the sole foreign student to be awarded a scholarship by the California Institute of Technology in 1988, following that. He had only Rs 3,500 when he arrived in the United States.
Sabeer began his career with FirePower Systems, a web database service that allowed users to share phone numbers and photographs. He sent emails via ISP services using a firewall because the available services were restricted. Though he believed he had it, something was off.
People linked to various servers were unable to access their personal email accounts due to the firewall. His goal was to provide a web-based system that would enable everyone to use the Internet to access email from anywhere in the world. Once more, he believed he had it, but something was wrong.
No one thought that this could actually exist. Sabeer persisted despite the rejection of his idea by twenty venture capitalists. In the end, he raised $1 CR from Draper Fisher Jurvetson and launched an HTML-based web startup. The birthdate of HoTMaiL is July 4, 1996.
Contrary to popular opinion, HotMail was the world’s first 100% remote email provider, and it took off. In the first three months, it went from having no users to 300,000 users. And the majority of it was acquired for about Rs 30 through word of mouth. But Sabeer had to expand more quickly.
In the footer of every Hotmail email, he began urging customers to try their free email service. He also gave journalists free trials in return for their articles on Hotmail and two gigabytes of free storage. Hotmail had a daily increase in users from 1000 to 10,000. Once 680 CR was raised, additional magic occurred.
It reached an incredible 5 million users by 1995. Thirty percent of Swedish people utilized it, and it held a twenty-five percent market share. There were just 2 million customers ahead of even America Online (AOL), the largest email provider in the world. There was a twist that followed.
Microsoft was constructing the same thing with its recently released suite, MSN, and Hotmail wanted to be more than just an email service. Microsoft made their largest acquisition to date on December 31, 1997, when they acquired Hotmail for 1600 CR in an all-stock deal.
More than 400 million people use Hotmail, formerly known as Microsoft Outlook. It ranks third in the world among email services, holding a 13.1% market share.
In just eighteen months, Sabeer Bhatia sold his business to a major player such as Microsft. He serves as an example of how Indians can create and market technology, even to the US.
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