CLICK HERE to access the Video Replay & Presentation of yesterday’s call on UPWK Best Idea Long.
UPWORK WEBSITE SERVICE DISRUPTION:
Upwork investigated an issue with parts of its site at 4AM ET today. The problem was identified and the company began working on a fix at ~6:30AM ET. The incident was upgraded from a partial disruption to a full disruption at ~8:15AM ET. At 8:52AM ET, the problem was remedied and the platform is back to being operational. We have read in forum comments (HERE) that the issue was security-related, however that has not been verified by the company.
IS THIS A REGULAR OCCURRENCE?
Based on user reviews, it was…at the time of the merger back in 2015. But users pointed out that much of the website bugs had been repaired as of today. Upwork has regularly scheduled maintenance 1-2 times per month at which point the site goes down in its entirety for 1-4 hours. However, between January 2018 and November 2018, the site was down for unplanned technical issues nearly every month (and sometimes multiple times per month). Since the end of October however, Upwork’s help center twitter account has not claimed an unplanned outage on the site (although a review of the site's status history indicates 3 partial and 1 full service disruptions within the last 3 weeks). For comparison, Fiverr’s last tweet about a service disruption: June 2017.
THE BIGGER PICTURE: WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?
When it comes to the Upwork's website, ease of use and strong interface were among the most highly cited feedbacks (especially relative to other platforms), problems with website performance and maintenance were cited but not often as a concern for users. However, more broadly, one of the biggest threats to Upwork is that freelancers and businesses will connect on the platform and subsequently move their business off the platform (to skirt platform fees). Although Upwork has systems in place to combat this threat, service disruptions like the one this morning are likely one of the bigger catalysts for this type of exit. In our Black Book Presentation yesterday we detailed our concerns around lack of new features on the platform and disconnected back-end data systems as questionable technology pieces of this story, this no doubt adds to that narrative.
NET: We are believers that this next wave of industrial productivity growth is a long-term LONG and will continue to watch closely as UPWK’s technology evolves with the platform.
Please call or e-mail with any questions.
Ami Joseph
Managing Director
Yosef Vaitsblit
Analyst
