Dynamic Duos: Paper Moose’s head meese
In this week's Dynamic Duos, Paper Moose's co-founders, Nick Hunter and Josh Flowers, share stories of going through the awkward high school era together, starting an agency together, being there for each other's big life moments, and so much more.
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two colleagues with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Nick Hunter:
Josh is fiercely intelligent while also being incredibly creative, he has designed the business core processes and operating system, composed music, designed packaging and products for our clients and took it upon himself to learn how to run the finances of the business because let’s face it, no one else had the brain to do it.
Josh and I met in high school and bonded over long hours of Nintendo 64 and Beck and Radiohead, we ran the school satirical newspaper and made experimental short comedy films. We also completed the Duke of Edinburgh Bronze and Silver together, so yes, we were nerds. We have traveled the world together, been camping during lightning storms on tops of mountains and of course built a business together. He is godfather to my children and was best man at my wedding and there is very little that we don’t know about each other by this point.
I think this allows us a shorthand and the ability to operate the business very dynamically, as we often understand each other’s point before the other expresses it. That being said we are very different, we have been described as a yin to each other’s yang, Josh is a very structured, process-driven, deep thinker, and I am admittedly a more messy intuitive thinker.
Our relationship is built on trust in each other’s capabilities and a common desire for continuous growth. I think as business partners we work well together as we push each other and complement each other’s strengths and ways of thinking. We are both also very calm under pressure and can challenge each other without bending any noses out of shape. We both are continuously looking for new ways to innovate and take the business to the next level, we love designing from first principles and neither of us has had previous experience of doing what we are doing before doing it. While this is most certainly a slower way to create a business, it is part of what makes Paper Moose and its business model unique; instead of re-using systems that are broken we prefer to design a better way together from scratch.
Josh Flowers:
Nick is the most stubbornly optimistic and relentlessly good humoured person I know. When others would have given up a hundred times over, Nick cheerily perseveres. This is his superpower but also potentially his kryptonite, which is part of the reason why I think we work so well together. We’re a complement of temperaments. Or as Nick describes it, ‘two ends of a horse’.
Ten years before founding Paper Moose, Nick and I met in high school – we were in the same oddball friend group and edited the school’s satirical comedy newspaper together. We stumbled into advertising when a group of friends and us found a way to commercialise our skills in video production. A few years in the trenches making content for agencies, we realised we had all the talent in-house to become a full-service creative agency ourselves. So we did.
In retrospect, trying to build an agency from the ground up from first principles without any prior industry experience was a bit foolish – but one thing we both have in common is we both seriously love a challenge, even a foolish one. To this day, we continue to take on foolish challenges, which is definitely an element of our success.
One of the defining features of Nick’s success is his disarming sense of humour, which is deployed at least 95% of the time. Even through the darkest of situations, Nick finds the humour in things, which I think is an under appreciated trait of resilience that is definitely rarer than it used to be. During tough times, it’s hard to be in bad spirits when Nick is around.
With over 10 years in business together, I’ve come to the conclusion that we make excellent business partners because we each have our own strengths, and almost none of them overlap. Together we make one whole horse.
Nick on Josh:
Most memorable moment with Josh: Oof too many to count, I think huddled in our two-man tent as lightning struck all around us was probably the closest we have come to death, which is always memorable. Building a business over 12 years from first principles and being in the trenches together during every crisis probably felt similar. Celebrating the victories, major gear changes in the business, and life milestones would also sit pride of place in my memory palace.
Best word to describe him: One word can’t encapsulate him so the best words I would describe Josh would be a devourer of knowledge, the man can build entirely new skills seemingly overnight. Case in point he taught himself robotics and how to code and built our little AI robot MooseBot over several weekends.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: Josh’s most annoying habit and endearing behaviour is the same, he is a deep thinker, this can be awe-inspiring as he goes very deep on problems and quickly gathers domain knowledge like no other person I know, this can sometimes be annoying as it is hard to keep up with.
Josh on Nick:
Most memorable moment with Nick: There are too many to count. We’ve hiked mountains in thunderstorms, been there for each other’s major life moments, and stuck through thick and thin together in business almost every day for the last 12 years. Some major highlights include growing a business together, being best man at his wedding, becoming the godfather to his sons, or hearing him sing Adele’s ‘Rolling in the Deep’ at karaoke for the 500th time.
Best word to describe him: It’s not a single word, but ‘good humoured’ would have to be it. It takes a lot to make him annoyed and I’ve only ever seen him angry or put-off a handful of times.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: I think Nick enjoys annoying me, so the list is quite long. Playing ‘Lovely Day’ in the office by Bill Withers is a standout – it’s a great song but Bill holds this long note near the end which pierces my soul. Knowing that, Nick used to love playing it almost daily. An endearing trait Nick also has is to say ‘treat yourself’ when deciding what to order for food. I’m happy to say he never not treats himself.
Subscribe to the daily newsletter
Got a tip?
Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
Linkedin
Have your say