By Eric Allen
When Julian Jung was playing a fishing game for class during his senior year of high school, his teacher, Erik Berg, did not just notice his aptitude for making an imaginary fishing company successful – he noticed his natural leadership and the ingenuity that helped his team win the game. Berg said he saw a business-minded, budding entrepreneur with a potential for real life success.
Today the pair are co-founders of an apparel company aimed at creating thought-provoking T-shirts and promoting social responsibility.
The company NogFod, which comes from “Noggin Fodder,” meaning brain food, began when Jung noticed Berg wearing a T-shirt with the words “Red, Blue, Green” written in colors that did not correspond to the text. The shirt demonstrated a psychological phenomenon called the Stroop Effect, which discusses the brain’s appropriate response when given two conflicting signals. It got Jung thinking, but not just about the brain-busting tee.
“The next day I went up to [Berg] with a file full of ideas,” said Jung, a freshman entrepreneurship major. “That was where we partnered up initially.”
The two decided to start an apparel company that produced an intellectual product, with a charitable tie-in.
“Once JJ and I decided to team up, he came up with the idea to donate some of the proceeds to charity,” Berg said.
The book “Three Cups of Tea,” in which the author builds schools in underprivileged areas of foreign countries, inspired Jung to make the company more socially aware, he said. Fifty percent of NogFod’s total profits go to education-related charities in the United States and around the world, he said.
The T-shirts themselves are designed to be as enlightened as the company. NogFod offers T-shirts from $16 to about $30, with phrases like “Tihs is bnanaas bacesue you can slitl raed it!” and another that asks, “Would you rather have a crocodile attack you or an alligator?”
NogFod currently produces its own T-shirts, but an upcoming collaboration with MyDawg Apparel will make shirts that will be targeted at Northeastern students, Jung said.
MyDawg, a company targeted toward diehard Husky fans, was co-founded by William Walker, a freshman criminal justice major, and 2006 alumnus Adam Zeisel. The Northeastern spirit runs strong in MyDawg Apparel, as shown on its website, so the relationship between the two companies may produce apparel that is both intellectual and Alma Mater-proud.
As with this partnership, Jung said NogFod is looking for ways to expand.
“Eventually we may want to go into environmentally conscious T-shirts,” he said.
From his interest in hedge funds at a young age, to his entrepreneurial spirit today, to his dream job as a venture capitalist, Jung’s future seems inspired.
“I love the idea of building something up from the ground,” he said.
