5 Questions with Jordan Trouw, Jill of All Trades!
If you ever visit the XYO Super-Secret Hacker Headquarters, and you need an oracle of knowledge to tell you how things work here, there’s only one person to ask: Jordan Trouw. Not only has she done it all at XYO, she’s been with the company from the very, very beginning — 2012.
As Jordan has watched XYO grow from just a handful of employees to the 80+ person operation it is today, she’s been fully immersed in developing a positive, streamlined and frictionless customer experience. Now that she’s moved over to product management, we asked her a few questions about her life at XYO, and here’s what she had to say:
What is your name and official title?
Jordan Trouw, Product Manager
What do you do at the company?
Although I like to joke that I’m a professional problem solver, I think a more accurate description is that I currently help optimize product experiences for customers. This involves some dev work updating our websites, some marketing when I help craft email or social media campaigns, and operations, when I help build better integrations that save money and optimize systems overall.
How did you get into your position — what was your route to becoming who you are at the company?
As Arie’s daughter, I’ve been working here essentially since 2012 when the company was founded. Even before XY, I QA’d his products in elementary school and built Facebook layouts at his previous company! With XY, I’ve worked summer internships from 2015–2017, and also came in during winter and spring breaks! I started working full time in the summer of 2018, finished my education at the University of Chicago (which included a once a week commute!) last December, so now I am happily settled in California. Since the very beginning of XY, I’ve run our social media platforms, helped in our Customer Obsession team, built websites and games, sold Reg A+ investments via phone and managed our phone sales team, written support articles and emails, and managed translations for our various documents. Ultimately, I’ve found a really fun and exciting home with Product Management, because it allows me to help products I deeply care about flourish and succeed within the company. It also helps me balance my interests in design, computer science and coding, and creative problem solving.
What is an average day for you (if there is one)?
Every day at XY is pretty exciting and unpredictable, but as someone who grew up with little to no boundary between work + personal life, as well as no real understanding of a “typical” or “9 to 5” job, it is something I genuinely love and enjoy. I typically go through Wrike, our task management system, and then spend huge chunks of time working on various systems or features for our products. I also play the day by ear, as I often get brought into meetings due to my experience with nearly every product at the company, and my (sometimes in-person) experience with our XY customers!
What’s surprised you most about your job?
I think what surprised me most about product managing was the enjoyment I found when I realized it was a job that actually existed. With a very computer and technology-focused father, and a very creative, problem-solving, and caring mother, I actually found it very difficult to find a place at XY that gave me the best of both sides of my brain. My degree from school is a Visual Arts degree, but I have gotten so many opportunities as a product manager to work directly with web code and design. After wearing nearly every single XY hat, I’m really fortunate to have a position that gives me space to be creative and logistics-oriented, and put all my own personal and vocational experience with the company to use.
There you have it. From customer obsession pro to problem solver, Jordan Trouw is not just an invaluable resource at XYO, she’s a frickin’ genius. When XYO introduces its roadmap in the very near future, she’ll no doubt be working behind the scenes to make our spectacular plans happen!
