Entrepreneur Norbert Chang P’24, P’27 Shares His Career Story at the Annual Family Weekend Assembly

By SOPHIE JAFFER, ALLEGRA LAI, LILY RAMPE, and ARJUN VELAN

On Friday, Oct. 18, Norbert Chang P’24 P‘27 spoke to Exeter about his experience as an entrepreneur and building a company through failure and success. 

After earning his bachelor’s degree in Finance and Information Systems from New York University, Chang started his entrepreneurial journey as a software developer. He then founded Enorbus Technologies, before moving on to work for Disney in Beijing, China, as a part of the Interactive Media team. Chang moved on to the educational sphere at MIT to teach others the lessons he learned when managing start-ups. He joined the MITdesignX lab, where he helped mentor and fund young entrepreneurs at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Currently, Chang works at MIT as a lecturer at the Morningside Academy of Design. 

Chang wanted to be transparent with students during his assembly. “My goal was to be honest and open about my journey,” he told The Exonian. “Preparing for the assembly gave me a chance to reflect on both the successes and challenges – when things didn’t go as planned. It was also a lot of fun to go back and look at my notes and presentations over the years to figure out what was best to share. It brought back a lot of memories.”

Chang started his assembly off by quoting the advice his two sons gave to him while he was preparing his speech. Chang said, “before I got started on this talk, I did what every responsible parent should do in my situation. I asked my kids. Osbert basically told me I wasn’t funny…Colbert said two things. Number one, don’t preach and number two, be honest and share both the successes and failures.” 

Carrying this advice through his speech, Chang described his childhood and teenage years in Texas, before attending college in New York. “For college I went to NYU and studied Finance, but my heart was always aligned with my inner geek, I wanted to work in tech,” Chang said.  

His career started at an investment bank in Chicago, where he worked in RNG. Thanks to his experience exploring new technology and prototypes here, Chang learned that mobile devices would someday connect to the internet. 

Soon Chang realized he wanted to work on something fun. Inspired by his time studying in China and the belief that one day everyone would be connected to the internet, Chang decided to start a company. “It sounds really crazy, and it was,” Chang stated. “I was 22 years old, and with little understanding of the world, I wrote a business plan with a non Chinese partner to move to Beijing.” 

Chang continued, “We began creating these black and white games. They were basically choose your own adventures, so not very exciting. But data showed that users craved entertainment on the go… After many trips to Tokyo, we were able to convince a local publisher to pay us to develop a game…The launch of this game gave us a lot of confidence and we set our sights on the US market where mobile games were starting to develop real revenues.” 

Along the way in app development, Chang noted some of the challenges he came across. “Developing for mobile as a new gaming platform was particularly challenging due to the lack of user feedback available to guide our efforts,” he said. 

Eventually, Chang and his partner decided to sell their first company. “The final step in our evolution was that we wanted to develop original IP based on famous characters. Our first title was based on King of Fires [a game in Japan]. After we created that, Disney approached us to explore collaboration opportunities and we joined them…After about six years into the company, we were generating about five million in revenue. It was solid but the mobile game market in China was really heating up and major players were developing strategies to enter. We were just a start up, and it was hard to compete. At this time we were also getting lots of interest from partners for possible partnerships. We thought it was the right moment, and ended up selling to Disney with our 110 employees.” 

After selling, Chang took a job at Disney. Chang expanded on his experience at Disney, “Interactive downloadable games were just starting to gain traction, and we were excited to explore different game genres on mobile platforms. At the same time, we sought new revenue streams, which led us to pursue development contracts worldwide.” 

Students have been inspired by Chang’s pioneering in the field of software developing, particularly with his work at Disney. “He was ahead of the curve for a lot of his startups. The fact that he basically created Disney Plus before Disney Plus was ever even close to being created. I’ve always been interested in how people have capitalized on the rise of the internet and the rise of an increasingly digital world, so his story was particularly enlightening in that aspect,” said senior Grant Leopold. 

Chang, who had moved into the education sphere, later in the assembly shared some projects he had helped mentor at MIT. 

“Working with these teams at Design X has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life,” Chang said. “One is Paloma, who is originally from Chile. Concerned by the transformation of the Atacama desert that has now turned into a dumping ground for everything under the sun, she envisioned creating a biomaterial to mimic the properties of plastic.” 

Another company Chang highlighted was Hosa, who joined DesignX in the first cohort in 2017. “Her PhD thesis proposed an A.I. engine to automatically generate insights about buildings and that became the inspiration for her company. Her first prototype was revolutionary. Remember, we are not in 2024 where there are already a bunch of A.I. models that have already been completed. You walk into a room and snap a picture. You give the system one measurement and in about 10 minutes, it would produce a fully 3D cat model. She had this really cool technology, but struggled to find a problem to solve…Her breakthrough came when she identified the inefficiencies in the insurance industry’s claim adjustment process.” 

Lastly, Chang mentioned Frolic. “Most people associate innovation with technology, but innovation can take many forms. Six years ago, Frolic joined DesignX with the statement that home ownership is out of reach. The problem was clear, but I initially wondered how…they would address it. Their goal was to create high quality housing in desirable areas. They wanted to tackle rising rents and skyrocketing housing prices that were displacing residents from their own communities. They came up with a solution to reinvent the traditional housing cooperative.” 

Chang ended his enthralling assembly with advice for future entrepreneurs. “The most important lesson I learned though was that having a great team and solid support network is key to having a chance at success. I was incredibly fortunate to have my wife and sister at my side during the journey. No founder succeeds alone. I also try to carry that entrepreneurship, entrepreneurial spirit, perseverance, joy, and problem solving into everything I do.” 

Chang hoped for Exeter students to take away from his assembly that things won’t always go as planned, but that’s just part of the journey of life. “Things don’t always unfold as you envision,” he said. “It’s not about achieving perfection or following a set path, but about resilience and commitment to the process.”