Noa The GameFredrik Brännlund, founder of Noa The Game
I'm someone who finds God in a nerve cell.
What he does.
Fredrik Brännlund started his first company in 2018, at 26. Since then he has built and sold companies, paid salaries to many dozens of people and run ENV Media fully remote across nine time zones. He comes from the gaming industry and has ten years of experience in game development.
He built the method behind Noa inside his own company in the fall of 2020, under the name Watering Together. Two years later it had changed the company at its core. The case is here →
- Founder of Noa The Game, a digital co-op game for building habits together.
- Speaks about habits, energy and engagement. Book him here →
- Built the method inside ENV Media and ran it there for several years.
That it became a game wasn't the original idea. The users who tested the method asked for it, and he is restless enough himself to need something entertaining while he does the work.
Why a nerve cell.
Learning about nerve cells and neuroscience taught him that the brain is plastic. It can be shaped and changed in more or less any direction.
Even though we're born with different conditions, we always have the possibility to make a change.
— Fredrik
He then lived a life as a self-experiment to see whether the thesis even holds. At least between the ages of 20 and 30. It held. And then came the harder question.
Since everything is possible to build, what is it that's important to try to build?
— Fredrik
That's where the conflicts came. The ego, and the urge to really confront himself on whether he was only aiming to fill his own desires. If everything is available and everything can be built, is that worth betting on?
The answer he landed on.
The existential joy is anchored firmly in what you create outside yourself and what you contribute.
— Fredrik
The road there went through himself first. When he started finding his way home and finding peace there was a great deal of energy left over, and it became a natural path to want to help outside himself. It took him on to macroeconomics and large global trends, and to the question of how you help the world without doing damage in the belief that you're contributing.
The answer he arrived at is about the very thing he had learned himself.
My contribution is about giving other people a chance to understand what matters to them. That they can set an intention and follow it through, and then come back and understand that they created that power.
— Fredrik
Why health sits underneath everything.
Knowing what you can contribute requires seeing clearly, and seeing clearly is a question of how the body is doing.
When we feel good and the body feels good, the emotions get steadier and the thoughts get cleaner. We can think soberly and more systematically, and we can hold several perspectives. We don't get as dualistic. Many truths can live at the same time. And from that place we have the possibility to make honest and clear decisions about what it is we can help with.
— Fredrik
That order is what the whole method rests on. Health comes first because it's the precondition for seeing clearly, and in the end you build the habits for the people you meet.
The tool.
Noa is the result. A game where you put in an intention, play your way through the weeks, and two months later have a result from it. The game is here →
Fredrik in the media.
Conversations and appearances outside this site, most recent first.
- Finally Together is called Noa The Game now · Fredrik Brännlund on LinkedIn, September 2026
The name change in his own words: what changes, what does not, and why the game is named after a neuron.
- Electric Memories · Interview by Brian Gruber, 2026
An eleven-thousand-word life story, from growing up in Stockholm and the years in the gambling industry in Malta through to why he built a tool about observing yourself rather than talking yourself into things.
- Learning to Show Up · Brian Gruber, 6C48: Taxiing the Planet, March 2026
An excerpt from the long interview, on responsibility, addiction and leadership, and on building something that gives more than it takes.
- Intrinsic First Leadership Podcast · Season 3, episode 17, September 2025
A conversation about leading a team across twelve time zones without controlling it, and about why the method behind Noa landed on the same principles that self-determination theory describes.
- Min första intervju · Emilié Blomberg, Journalistakademien, January 2023, in Swedish
A blog post about her first interview as a journalism student, with Fredrik as the one answering. It is the earliest published description of the method behind Noa, from when it was still an app he had built and tested inside his previous company.
Press.
Facts
- Name
- Fredrik Brännlund
- Role
- Founder of Noa The Game
- Company
- Noa The Game, a digital co-op game for building habits together
- Speaking
- Habits, energy and engagement
- Photography
- Jonathan Leijonberg, Länstidningen Östersund
- Contact
- fredrik@noathegame.com
- Website
- noathegame.com
Download the press kit (zip, 1.6 MB)
Biography
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Fredrik Brännlund is the founder of Noa The Game, a digital co-op game for building habits together.
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Fredrik Brännlund is the founder of Noa The Game, a digital co-op game for building habits together. He started his first company in 2018, comes from the gaming industry, and built the method behind Noa inside his own company ENV Media in the fall of 2020. Today he speaks about habits, energy and engagement.
Long, around 120 words
Fredrik Brännlund started his first company in 2018, at 26, and is the founder of Noa The Game. Since then he has built and sold companies, paid salaries to many dozens of people, and run ENV Media fully remote across nine time zones. He comes from the gaming industry and has ten years of experience in game development. He built the method behind Noa inside his own company in the fall of 2020, under the name Watering Together. Two years later it had changed the company at its core. Over the same period ENV Media grew tenfold and lost no one to layoffs. That it became a game was not the original idea. The users who tested the method asked for it. Today Fredrik Brännlund speaks about habits, energy and engagement.
Press photos
