Shares of freelance work site Upwork (NASDAQ: UPWK) lived "up" to their name on Thursday, soaring 40% through 9:45 a.m. in early morning trading after the company reported a big earnings beat last night.

Analysts didn't hold out much hope for profits in Upwork's second quarter, predicting the company would barely break even on sales of $162.6 million. But it did quite a bit better than that, with sales coming in at a strong $168.6 million, while earnings were a full $0.10 per diluted share.  

The news wasn't all great. Gross services volume (GSV), the value of all the work done by freelancers for clients on Upwork in the quarter, again exceeded $1 billion in the quarter. But Upwork's share of that GSV generated $168.6 million in revenue, up only 7% year over year. What's more, it turns out that Upwork's $0.10 per share in profit was an adjusted figure, and not as defined by generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP).

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Source Fool.com