THE STAYCATION SPECIAL

First Person
Marshmallow mogul James Middleton may be better known as the
brother of Kate, Duchess of Cambridge. But this entrepreneur is all
about forging his own path—most recently with his company Boomf,
which sells personalizable marshmallows and is expanding to the
city. In town for the recent Food Truck Festival, he tells Evelyn Lok
about his relationship with sweets, that royal connection and how
his dyslexia is a strength, not a weakness. Photo by Kirk Kenny
I’ve always loved the excitement around sweet treats.
Marshmallows are a wonderfully nostalgic thing
for adults. For kids they’re just such fun because
they’re squidgy and fluffy.
What we wanted to achieve with Boomf was a
personalized gifting product that we could send
anywhere in the world.
I don’t think there are that many products that
really surprise people anymore. We feel like
we’ve seen everything.
But when you see your Instagram photo printed on
a marshmallow and delivered to you the next day,
it’s like “Oof! I didn’t see that coming.” That’s what
we’ve been aiming for.
I’ve had two businesses before, which I
thoroughly enjoyed.
Some people say they failed, but how I perceive it
was that I learned about something else and wanted
to explore that [instead].
For that same reason, I conceived the idea of Boomf
and moved forward.
[In Hong Kong], I’ve learned that there’s a wonderful
gifting culture here.
In a lot of other cities, everyone’s out fighting
for themselves, not looking out for anybody else.
In some countries you might just give someone
a gift on their birthday or for a seasonal event.
Here I would give a gift just because you’re
my friend and I care about you.
I’ve definitely got the entrepreneurial spirit:
unadulterated enthusiasm for what I do.
I wouldn’t be doing anything else, despite
sometimes working so hard—my longest shift
was 42 hours, over Christmas.
It’s hard work but it’s such fun, and I wouldn’t
change it for the world.
Family are very good at giving sound and honest
advice. Sometimes your friends or colleagues don’t
necessarily give you true advice: They give you what
you want to hear.
They’re extremely supportive of what I do, but they’re
also very grounding.
The media can sometimes take the easy route and
make it seem like I’m overshadowed [by my sisters],
or I’m taking advantage of the position I’m in.
I try very, very hard so that I’m not disrespectful of
the position I’m in, but equally, I have to make my
own path. It’s not always represented like that.
Does it bother me? Not really. I have thicker skin
than people probably think.
No, I don’t think of my sisters differently.
They’re still my sisters—sometimes really annoying,
sometimes I love them to bits. They’re nothing
other than my sisters.
All the childhood memories and future memories will
never be different. They’re just Pippa and Katherine
and will always only ever be Pippa and Katherine.
The biggest pressure I had from my family was to
stay in university.
I dropped out. I feel there are parts where I missed
out, but I gained many other brilliant experiences.
One of my biggest obstacles was [gaining]
experience. You go into something very naïvely,
and everyone around you is telling you:
“you can’t do it like that.”
But sometimes the best way to do it, is to
do it yourself.
If you went by everybody’s advice the whole
time, the whole world wouldn’t go round:
It would just plateau.
You can be told a hundred different ways to fry an
egg but the best way is just to go ahead and fry it.
I always joke that I could run a business in the
UK at age 19, but I still couldn’t rent a van.
I’m very proudly dyslexic. I spent a fair bit of my
childhood embarrassed by it. At age 17 I learned
a bit more about it, and my mentality changed.
I think of it as more of a superpower.
Like if Harry Potter has his invisibility cloak,
I have… dyslexia.
With dyslexia my route to get to an
answer, from A to B, goes via quite
a few different stops.
I still get there—and the end
result is always a little different.
I’ve learned to use it as
an advantage.
Thank God for spell check.
I think you’re pretty lucky if you
have dyslexia. You should be
putting that on the first line
of your CV.
Then I know you’ve got
a different and creative way
of getting somewhere.
NEED TO KNOW...
Grab a box of personalized
printed marshmallows from
boomf.com. Prices start at
$195 for nine (free delivery).
“ I don’t think of my
sisters differently.
They’re just Pippa
and Katherine and will
always only ever be
Pippa and Katherine.”
Photo: Kirk Kenny / studiozag.com
38 HK MAGAZINE FRIDAY, MAY 20, 2016