The Ops Show with Noah Labhart

Episode Summary

Executive Summary: Noah Labhart shares his path from corporate IT to entrepreneurship, launching a mobile dev agency and then Variable, a marketplace for on-demand manufacturing labor. The discussion explores Variable’s role in flexible shop-floor staffing, the realities of U.S. manufacturing, enterprise integration challenges, and how Noah’s podcast Code Story reflects broader lessons about startup building, technical tradeoffs, and team dynamics.

Main Topics: Noah’s transition from corporate IT to entrepreneurship (Priority: 5/5): He describes leaving Alcon Laboratories after eight years, starting a mobile development agency, and eventually co-founding Variable after realizing he wanted to build his own product rather than client work. Variable’s on-demand labor marketplace (Priority: 5/5): Variable is positioned as the 'Uber for the shop floor,' enabling manufacturers and distribution centers to flex labor up and down while giving workers schedule flexibility and daily pay. Manufacturing trends and COVID impact (Priority: 4/5): The conversation covers offshoring, reshoring, and how COVID affected manufacturing labor demand, including Variable’s recovery after stimulus money ran out and demand returned. Enterprise integration and implementation strategy (Priority: 5/5): They discuss the difficulty of integrating with ERP/MES/WMS/LMS systems, especially on-prem or private-cloud environments, and why Variable relies on implementation partners rather than building connectors for every system. Software architecture and scaling journey (Priority: 5/5): Noah explains the company’s progression from Parse to a Node/Postgres monolith and now toward Kubernetes, Kafka, service mesh, and microservices to handle performance and scale. Code Story and lessons from founders (Priority: 4/5): Noah explains how his podcast was inspired by How I Built This and how it uncovers the human, technical, and emotional realities behind startup building. Parallels between manufacturing and software (Priority: 4/5): The hosts compare just-in-time labor with just-in-time software decisions, emphasizing that software is easier to change than physical operations and that timing of technical choices matters.

Key Arguments: Variable addresses real manufacturing labor volatility by enabling companies to ramp staffing based on demand instead of fixed headcount. The platform creates a 'third labor paradigm' between full-time labor and temp staffing, aiming for better quality and flexibility. Reshoring manufacturing makes Variable more relevant because domestic operations need more adaptive labor models to remain competitive. Enterprise software in manufacturing is not uniformly cloud-based; on-prem and private-cloud realities make partner-led implementations more practical than one-off connectors. A monolith can be the right early-stage architecture, but scaling pressures can justify a later move to microservices and container orchestration. Code Story succeeds by focusing on human stories behind technical decisions, not just technical summaries. Founders repeatedly face similar themes—team quality, backend rewrites, MVP compromises—even though each company’s execution differs. Shipping quickly matters, but only if the core product is strong and the team stays aligned with business needs.

Data Points: Years at Alcon Laboratories: 8 years - Noah worked in corporate IT before leaving to start his own venture. Agency team size: 15-ish contractors - His mobile development agency grew from solo work to a contractor network. Variable founding year: 2016 - Noah and his partner started Variable in 2016. Variable launch year: 2017 - The company launched the product the year after it was founded. Code Story first episode: June 2019 - Noah released the first episode of his podcast then. Code Story initial edit time: 6 months - He spent six months editing the first episode before hiring an editor. Code Story release cadence: Every 2 weeks initially, then weekly - The podcast began biweekly and later moved to weekly output. Company performance milestone: Biggest month yet in August - Noah said Variable saw its biggest month in August after recovery from COVID disruption. Platform architecture: Monolith for about 2 years - The Node/Postgres monolith was used before performance issues pushed the team toward microservices.

Pivotal Quotes: "We provide businesses with the opportunity to capitalize on flexible labor. So be able to ramp up and ramp down their workforces on the shop floor and the distribution center along the supply chain." — Noah Labhart: Explaining Variable’s core value proposition. "There’s full-time labor, there’s temp staffing, and then there’s us." — Noah Labhart: Defining Variable as a third option in labor staffing models. "We’re trying to situate ourselves in digital factory and industry 4.0, the buzzwords around manufacturing, where we sit as one of the apps and connect horizontally and vertically in that ecosystem." — Noah Labhart: Describing Variable’s integration and platform strategy.

Implications: The episode suggests manufacturing labor is becoming more software-like: flexible, data-driven, and integrated. For founders and operators, it highlights the value of timing technical decisions, choosing pragmatic architectures, and building for real-world enterprise constraints.