Since I have an overweight allocation on UPST I think it’s a good idea to keep Upstart on a short leash. For me, this means trying to not only follow the news around it but also to think of questions or possible concerns and try to find an answer before needed. Having a proactive approach instead of just waiting for news or concerns to appear.
These are the questions I attempt to answer in this post:
- There is a long hold time when trying to reach customer support via phone as expressed by some customers. Is the support slow via email too?
- What is the hiring process like when trying to apply and what is the culture behind the scenes?
- How are the marketing efforts affecting the online presence and traffic of upstart.com?
- Any plans of accepting Canadian or EU clients?
- Is upstart looking to get into BNPL space and if yes, when?
- Are we at the mercy of analysts?
1. There is a long hold time when trying to reach customer support via phone as expressed by some customers. Is the support slow via email too?
As many people here on the board mentioned already, there is a delay when potential clients try to reach Upstart via phone. I wanted to see how the support via email is, so I sent 2 different emails via 2 different email addresses. I got a reply within a few hours on both of my questions. The replies came from 2 different persons. So, email support was spot on.
2. What is the hiring process like when trying to apply and what is the culture behind the scenes?
I recently applied for an open position through upstart.com/careers/open-roles. Even though I do not live in the US I wanted to apply anyway to see if I could get any info on the hiring process and the culture of the company. This was a legitimate interest in working for the company and the job description matched my experience to a reasonable degree besides the obvious requirement of being a US citizen. Within a few minutes I received this reply:
Dear Pavlos,
We received your resume for the “------” role here at Upstart. We appreciate your interest and our team looks forward to reviewing your background. We review profiles daily and will reach out in the next couple of weeks if your profile aligns with one of our open opportunities. There is no need to apply a second time.
Meanwhile, we invite you to follow us on LinkedIn and keep an eye on our blog for the news on Upstart.
Sincerely,
Upstart Hiring Team
And within 48 hours I received this:
Hi Pavlos,
Thank you for your interest in joining Upstart and applying to the “-----” position. We understand it takes time and effort to evaluate opportunities, and we are grateful that you considered Upstart. Regrettably, we have decided to move forward with others at this time.
Please keep in touch by following us on LinkedIn to stay apprised of company updates. We wish you the best in your pursuits!
Sincerely,
Upstart Recruiting Team
→ My take-home message is that Upstart has a significant pool of qualified candidates willing to join the team. Within 48 hours the position had already been filled. And I checked on the website to confirm and the position was no longer active.
Has anyone else tried to apply before? Or is anyone based in the US willing/interested to apply?
3. How are the marketing efforts affecting the online presence and traffic of upstart.com?
Organic traffic seems to have almost doubled in the last 6 months while paid traffic remains relatively flat which is nice to see organic growing faster than paid. Organic traffic went from 190K to almost 380K for desktop and from 160K to 320K on mobile.
image 1 on https://imgur.com/a/4eZ1nUJ
Organic traffic shows the number of visitors that come to upstart.com through searching on google. Paid search traffic is attributed to visitors clicking on a link in an advertisement/sponsored listing that a business has paid for to appear at the top of the search results.
image 2 on https://imgur.com/a/4eZ1nUJ
As this might include a large number of possible investors, I compared the results from the upstart login keyword as well. This shows that the trend is moving higher too. Both on mobile and desktop we see that the interest has almost doubled within the last 2 months.
image 3 and 4 on https://imgur.com/a/4eZ1nUJ
One thing I found interesting is the fact that the paid traffic has seen a rapid increase for Canada for this month. You can see the jump from 0 to almost 4.5K. As I understand, Upstart serves only US citizens at the moment. Is this an attempt to start accepting CA clients too? Perhaps testing the waters? Can anyone add a bit more color to this?
image 5 on https://imgur.com/a/4eZ1nUJ
And what made it even more interesting is the keyword that they are targeting. It seems that they get most of their paid traffic when people search for borrowell.Borrowell.com is a Canadian platform that works with over 50+ financial partners in Canada to find loans that match your credit profile.
image 6 on https://imgur.com/a/4eZ1nUJ
–>My take is that the online presence of upstart.com is moving upwards. This includes people visiting the site including potential clients and/or investors as well as people trying to log in (clients). And perhaps the company is preparing for allowing Canadian clients too.
4. Any plans of accepting Canadian or EU clients?
Because of the Semrush results I got on paid traffic for Canada, I wanted to see if the company had any plans on that, so I emailed Upstart to ask about any plans of accepting EU or Canadian clients and this is the reply I got:
Hello!
Thanks for reaching out.
Unfortunately, we cannot accept applications outside of the United States due to one of the eligibility requirements is for applicants to have a U.S. address.
Our loan eligibility requirements are located here:
http://upstarthelp.upstart.com/7619-Borrower-Eligibility/108…
If you have any questions, you can email Upstart® Loan Operations at support@upstart.com, or you can call us at (650) 204-1000. Our phone lines are open every day from 6am-5pm Pacific Time, except New Years Day, Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Eve, and Christmas Day.
Best Regards,
Amanda
Upstart® Loan Operations
–>So, I don’t know why they would target Canadian keywords and try to take share from Borrowell.com. Maybe just testing the waters?
5. Is upstart looking to get into BNPL space?
I was curious whether Upstart had any plans to join the BNPL space because of all the buzz lately. So, I emailed Upstart IR with that question, and this is the response I got within 24 hours from Jason Schmidt, VP Investor Relations, Upstart:
Hi Pavlos,
We have not announced or discussed an intention to enter buy now pay later at this stage. Please let me know if there is anything else I can help you with.
Regards,
Jason
VP, investor Relations
Upstart
–>Now, I don’t know whether there is an intention to do so at a later stage, but this is all I got. My take is just that. That they have no plans to enter the space as of now.
6. Are we at the mercy of analysts?
It seems that the market gets excited or worried according to what analysts do or say. I bet analysts spend less than 1/10th of the time we do on researching the companies we follow. And that they are usually late to adjust their price targets. I don’t remember anyone here worrying about investing in Upstart when the analysts’ PT were far below what we thought possible. Personally, I would worry more if someone like jonwayne235 — who’s a proper student of the company with a pretty heavy allocation — spotted something alarming instead of any analyst. Just my 2 cents.