The Comments Section Is His Canvas
Most people scroll past the comments. Thomas Noh saw a business.
He’s the founder of Sociable AI, a community management platform that helps brands land top comments on viral posts. Think Duolingo-level sass, Netflix-level weird, Wendy’s-level chaos. “We automate DMs and comments,” Thomas says. “But really, what we do is help brands get noticed in the most unexpected places.”
It’s a product that sits at the intersection of marketing, machine learning, and meme culture. And it exists because Thomas hated every other path.
From Drop Shipping to His Friend’s Basement
“I hated my life in high school,” he says. “I was playing video games, doing schoolwork, trying to get into college like a good Asian son. But I didn’t care about any of it.”
That changed after a cousin introduced him to Earl Nightingale, a mid-century motivational speaker whose message hit 16-year-old Thomas like a freight train. “He said the 1 percent wake up thinking about how they’ll become the 1 percent. That stuck with me.”
Soon, Thomas was deep into drop shipping. His first site flopped. His parents hated the idea. “They told me to study for the SAT. I said I wasn’t going to college because I was going to be an entrepreneur.” They told him to get out. So he did. He moved into a friend’s basement and tried to figure it out.
The breakthrough didn’t come from the product. It came from the problem. He didn’t know how to bring traffic to his site. “So I decided I had to learn marketing. I started working for free, wherever I could.”
Why He Went to College Anyway (And Stayed)
Despite his rebellious streak, Thomas still applied to college, mostly to prove to his mom that he could get in. After he was accepted, another cousin tried to convince him to go.
“I told him my whole plan, and he was like, ‘Honestly, you don’t need college.’ But then he said, ‘Your parents are paying for it. If it sucks, drop out.’” So Thomas went. And ended up staying, not for the classes, but for the startup ecosystem.
He studied marketing, which he calls “useless,” but spent his time building. “I was flipping cars, selling on Amazon, still experimenting with drop shipping. But when I met other startup kids, I realized they were working on things bigger than themselves. That clicked for me.”
The Sociable Spark
Thomas was working as a social media manager for a cosmetics company when the real idea hit. “They told me to sound more feminine—like, ‘Slay queen’ and stuff—and that wasn’t natural for me,” he laughs.
A friend introduced him to early versions of GPT-3. “I used it to automate the parts of my job I didn’t like,” Thomas says. “And it worked.”
That was the spark. Could AI not just automate content, but create moments people remember?
He started building Sociable AI during college. When graduation loomed, he knew he didn’t want a job. He wanted to go all in. “We had no funding. I started raising with two months left in school.”
That’s when he found Brickyard, a no-frills VC and incubator in Chattanooga, Tennessee. “They told me, ‘Everyone here works 100 hours a week.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go.’” He convinced his co-founders, some still in school, to drop out and move with him.
“I even begged one of their parents for four hours to let their kid drop out. It worked.”
From Automation to Attention
Sociable didn’t start as a viral-comment engine. It began as a basic DM and comment automation tool. Then they tried repurposing it for conversions, automating follow-ups and link sharing.
“But saving time is a hard sell unless you’re saving a lot of it,” Thomas explains. “So we pivoted. We decided we’d help brands make money instead of just save time.”
Today, they predict which posts will go viral across social media. Then they alert their clients in real time with prompts like “Here’s a viral post in your niche. Go comment now.” Their AI drafts witty, brand-specific comments designed to land at the top.
“Twenty thousand likes on a comment means twenty thousand people saw your brand without you spending on ads.”
They’re targeting consumer goods brands and are already running a pilot with a major energy drink company. Pepsi and Heinz are next.
What Makes It Worth It
The business goal is clear. Hit twenty thousand dollars in monthly recurring revenue by year-end and raise a seed round in early 2026. But that’s not what drives Thomas.
“Startups are a dumb way to get rich,” he says. “It’s hard, success rates are low. You have to care. For me, I just love making things that people remember.”
Whether it’s cinematography, cooking, or a viral comment, it’s always been about creating tiny moments that stick.
“One of our clients got eighty thousand likes on a comment we wrote. That’s eighty thousand people who laughed—because of something we helped them say. That’s the magic.”
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