Founders Everywhere: Diego Kafie
Diego Kafie is the CEO & Co-founder of Noise, a growth platform helping businesses scale affordably while enabling everyday people to earn as social media creators.
Welcome to Founders Everywhere, where we highlight the incredible people behind the companies we’ve backed at Everywhere Ventures, a global pre-seed fund supported by a community of 500 founders and operators.
The creator economy has long been dominated by influencers with massive followings, but Noise is drowning out the old playbook. Their double-sided marketplace connects brands with everyday people, turning anyone with a smartphone into a social media creator. By tapping into the interest-based algorithms powering TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, Noise makes it possible for college students, stay-at-home parents, and side-hustlers to generate real income through organic content. No previous experience or high follower counts required. Brands, in turn, get a cost-effective, highly diversified alternative to traditional advertising, sometimes at up to 90% lower cost than conventional channels.
Co-founders Diego Kafie, CEO, Nic Weber, CPO, and Stu Feldt, CTO, have been building together for over a decade. They met at Answers, a St. Louis startup that shaped their careers and gave them the playbook they’d eventually use to launch companies of their own. The idea for Noise emerged organically from their previous consumer app company, where they discovered the effectiveness of nano-creator marketing while scaling that app. After that business was acquired by a competitor, the team saw an opportunity to productize the strategy that had driven their growth within a new company. Diego shares more about how what started as an internal growth tactic quickly revealed itself to be a scalable business opportunity: helping brands unlock authentic, high-performing creator content at scale while giving everyday people a new way to earn income online.
What’s Noise’s North Star?
We actually have two, because we serve two very different sides of the marketplace. For brands, we aim to become a permanent, must-have line item in every brand’s marketing budget by being the most reliable and ROI-positive channel for growth. For creators, we want to build the world’s largest gig-economy platform by making flexible income through content creation more accessible than traditional gig work, allowing anyone with a smartphone to participate.
Why is Noise going to win?
People are tired of the overly polished Hollywood-type on social media. They want to see real people. The structural shift in social media is working in our favor as modern algorithms don’t care about followers anymore, they’re interest-based. That means anyone with a smartphone can reach an unfathomable amount of people. We’re also riding a craving for authenticity that AI has accelerated.
For brands, the model is simple and flexible: they pay per view, there are no upfront charges, contracts, or lockups, and brands can set their own prices. If something doesn’t perform, they can even strike it and get a refund. There’s absolutely no reason not to try it. If you’re interested in talking about viral growth, sign up for free or book a call!
The internet is vast. The only way you win is by making a lot of NOISE!
How does Noise inspire “customer love”?
What inspires customer love at Noise are the stories from creators whose lives have genuinely changed through the platform. We’ve seen creators pay off student debt, stay-at-home parents build meaningful income, and families afford experiences they never thought possible. Creators are paying medical bills, getting their first apartments, funding Disney trips for the whole family, and all kinds of other fun things. Those stories remind us that we’re building more than a marketing platform. We’re creating new economic opportunities for people everywhere. On the brand side, customer love comes from consistent results, with brands seeing measurable growth in installs, sales, engagement, and ROI.
How has your background shaped you as a founder?
I’m from Honduras and I moved to St. Louis at 18 to go to college. That shaped the way I approach everything as a founder. Navigating the immigrant experience, fighting for a work visa, and fighting to stay in the country gave me a deep appreciation for the opportunity I’ve been granted to live in this country, and a strong sense of urgency to make the most of it. Early in my career, I was fortunate to join a company that invested heavily in a young kid with no real experience and gave me every tool to grow. My co-founders and I all came up through that same environment, and it shaped how we think about building teams and creating opportunities for others.
Any favorite podcasts or books?
I consume as much as I can, but I have a rule for myself to make sure I’m relaxing every now and then: all the visual content I watch (TV, movies) is purely for entertainment. All the audio I listen to is purely educational. So when I’m driving, working out, or heads-down at the office, I’m listening to podcasts and audiobooks and just constantly learning from people sharing their experiences. Some of my favorites are Acquired, Pivot, Invest Like the Best, and How I Built This. For books, I really loved Bob Iger’s Ride of a Lifetime, a full tell-all before he came back to Disney, so he probably has a few more chapters to write now.
Fun fact:
I’ve always loved soccer. I’m in my 30s now but still play 3 times per week. A big part of what I enjoy about it is the leadership and teamwork aspect, which naturally carries over into entrepreneurship.
Listen to Su Sanni with Kameale C. Terry, on the Venture Everywhere podcast: Worth Every Dollaride. Now on Apple & Spotify. Check out to all our past episodes here!
