He’s Still in High School — But Could His Startup Tackle a Massive Workforce Problem?

Noah Marbach worked enough restaurant and retail shifts to know scheduling is a nightmare. And the tools meant to solve it? They’re often part of the problem.

“[Most tools] assume that restaurant managers have the time to sit down, open up their computer, and navigate through a bunch of complicated dashboards,” he told Hypepotamus. “And that’s just unfortunately something that they don’t have the time for.”

Now in his senior year at Pope High School in Metro Atlanta, Marbach is focusing on building a solution that actually works for employees and employers alike.

Marbach founded XShift AI as an AI co-pilot that handles shift scheduling through natural language commands, no complex dashboards required.

Fixing The Broken Schedule

Marbach designed the platform with “simplicity” in mind for the front end for users, but “scalability on the back end.”

Based on time zones, employee preferences, and past reliability, XShift’s AI agent can help a manager fill out multiple schedules across multiple days all at once. It can also answer workforce-related questions like “when should I schedule more people.” Soon, overtime requirements and labor costs will also be included.

The result is a conversational-first tool designed for managers in retail, restaurant, healthcare, and service industries who need to streamline the logistics around scheduling shifts.

“XShift has seen the strongest early resonance in retail and restaurants, especially teams with hourly, shift-based work where schedules change frequently and managers are under constant time pressure,” Marbach added. “These environments feel the pain of manual scheduling or older scheduling software tools most acutely, so the value becomes clear very quickly.”

The Unconventional Path to Product-Market Fit

Marbach’s go-to-market strategy reflects his bootstrap reality. He told Hypepotamus that cold emails through Instantly AI have driven the most revenue, while he’s been experimenting with different social media platforms and Google Ads to reach the right customers. He’s also been doing the “old fashioned” marketing tactics: Walking into restaurants and pitching managers on the idea of XShift face-to-face.

“Early on, our goal was to reduce friction for teams adopting the product and to learn directly from real-world usage,” he says. “We even have onboarded some clients for free in exchange for valuable feedback to make our app even better.”

To date, he has landed clients including a women’s apparel company and a restaurant group with hundreds of employees. Now, with validation in hand, Marbach is preparing to formalize pricing.

“Based on strong feedback and how customers are using XShift day-to-day, we’re now in the process of evolving our pricing to better reflect the value delivered,” he said. Marbach added that the platform plans to adjust the per-user pricing to roughly $4–$5 per user per month over the next couple of months, with more favorable per-user rates on longer-term plans.

A Look Ahead For XShift AI

Marbach’s daily routine defies the typical high school experience. After classes, he works on XShift. Even in his “off time” at the gym, he listens to business and technology-focused Coursera lectures. He plans on attending the University of Mississippi next year.

On the XShift front, Marbach said he is focused on shifting his attention into product development and go-to-market execution, with his eye on a potential capital raise next year.