Meet Magnus Busch | Co-Founder of nook society

What does it take to build a hospitality brand around people rather than rooms?

This time, we’re catching up with Magnus Busch, Co-Founder of nook society, to talk about the realities of building something different in hospitality. With a background in hotel operations, expansion and business development, Magnus has spent years exploring what makes people connect, and what makes them want to come back.

From making decisions without all the answers to bringing strangers together in the mountains, his answers are a reminder that hospitality has always been about more than a place to stay.

Here’s a little look into Magnus’s day, his approach to work, and what keeps him in hospitality.

Connect with Magnus: LinkedIn | nook society

Section 1

The Day

A look behind the scenes of working in hospitality.

Q1. What’s the very first task you tackle when you sit down, and why that one first?

My first task is triage. I map everything onto a matrix, urgent against important, and that tells me where to start. But there’s always room for emotions in how I set up my tasks. Part of my work is creative, so if the momentum is there, I use it. I’ve learned not to fight that – when the creative energy shows up, I follow it, rather than forcing myself through the grid in order.

Q2. Tell me about a decision you made recently with incomplete information, and how you made the call.

Working in the premium segment of human-centric hospitality means working with human beings, and that’s an environment that’s never fully controllable. You never have complete certainty that things will work. I still put everything down with assumptions in an Excel file, and years of experience help you get better and better at it. But there are still things that make life wonderful, and that’s exactly the uncertainty of human behavior.

Q3. What’s something about your day that would surprise someone who’s never worked in your role?

My day is very up and down. It involves operational planning, organizational tasks, creative work, development, and writing, and the surprising thing is that they all come together and create something new. But the biggest thing, the best of it all, is working in uncertainty and testing new things.

Q4. What’s kept you in hospitality on the days you’ve thought about leaving?

It’s simple, really – I simply like to surround myself with friendly people. Bringing people together is my true passion, and honestly, the reason I’m on this earth.

Q5. What’s a moment recently where you got to do the part of your job you love most?

I have a passion for celebrating the art of human-centric hospitality. We recently went to Bad Gastein, in the Austrian Alps, with our Nook Travels concept, for the Infinite Trails, a trail running race held there every September. We brought thirty-five people together, and hosting that group, with forty percent of them new faces, and watching how well they came together, that was the moment. Because what we’re really building is the modern version of a tribe. The feedback from that trip is exactly what makes my work worth it. That’s what I love, every day.

Section 2

HeyVar Values

The people, perspectives and moments that shape how we work.

Togetherness – Describe a moment your team, or someone on it, carried you through something hard. What did they actually do?

Working in an ideal team, for me, is when the other team member becomes more important to you than yourself. It’s about putting your own ego under the team ego. That’s what puts the team in the position to win.

Inspiration – Who or what changed how you see your work, and what exactly did they do or say?

It was the moment our first guest said that Nook feels like home, but a little bit better. That changed how I see the work. It told me we had created something where people find true identification and a true sense of belonging. 

Want to hear more from Magnus?

There’s more to the story than what fits into one article. If you want to hear Magnus Busch talk more about hospitality, building nook society, and why bringing people together matters, tune in to his conversation on the Hospitality Folks Podcast.

Listen to the full episodes below!