Mark Warman

From running a digital marketing agency in the Middle East, through to consulting and on to building custom motorcycles, Mark is the founder of Barnfield Customs.

Where do you live/are you from?

Always such a tough question to answer. I’m English but I was born and grew up in Bahrain, a tiny island just off the Eastern coast of Saudi Arabia. I was there until I was 16 when I moved to the UK to finish my education and find work. I was in Nottingham for 10 years before I moved back out to Bahrain. Amy, my wife, grew up over there too and we met one year when we were both back on holiday. She’s from Australia and although we knew really early on that we wanted to be together, neither of us were ready to move 24 hours away from our families. Amy’s Dad and her brother were still in Bahrain so we decided to try our luck over there since it was part way between both countries. 13 years later and we’ve just moved back to Nottingham.

What were you doing before Barnfield? And what made you take the leap?

For the 13 years I was in Bahrain, I was running a digital marketing agency. We built websites, rolled out email and social media marketing, advertising, etc. We worked with some big names and had an awesome team but 16 hour days, 7 days a week eventually took it’s toll on us. We both worked in the agency and so we were never ‘off’ and if we were out of the office, it took two senior members of staff out of the team. I can’t remember a holiday that we took in that time where we weren’t glued to our phones or computers. We both completely burnt out.

I stayed in the industry, consulting for 3 years after we brought the agency to a close. That gave me a bit more time to explore other interests and I started at least 10 different projects in the hope that they’d turn into something I could sink my teeth into. Looking back though, I was still recovering. It’s taken me a long time to really buy in to the idea of burn out and understand the long term effects. I’ve since read about people being admitted to hospital for stress and anxiety related illnesses, turning off their phones for 6 days and coming back to work fully energised and ready to rock. That wasn’t me. I went back into our office a couple of months after closing it down to pack it up and almost immediately felt the walls closing in on me. It was a really intense physical reaction and I couldn’t wait to get out.

Why clothing? What drew you to it in particular?

I’ve always liked to feel good in my clothes and I know the psychological benefits first hand. Whenever I had to pitch the agency, I was often doing so to the board of an organisation. 10+ people, all looking at you, expecting you to deliver. Of course, a good suit was never going to win the pitch but how I felt would always have a huge impact on how I presented.

I did a genetic test and one of the points that came up was that I have the telltale markers for cardiac issues. At one point when I was running the agency, I ended up having heart palpitations and went through 48 hours of tests to rule out anything major. In the end, it was put down to stress but combine that with the genetic info and staying active is an important part of my life.

One of the projects I started looking into while I was consulting was an athleticwear brand. I wanted to use sustainable performance materials to create clothing that was unbranded and custom cut to each individual, like a tailored suit. The idea being that when you feel good in what you’re wearing, you feel confident and are more likely to perform better. I designed each piece to be unbranded to allow the clothing to be about the individual rather than about the brand. I was adamant that everything should be made sustainably and ethically. I couldn’t, and still can’t, see that anyone could feel good about themselves wearing the clothes we made if they were damaging to the environment or to people’s lives.

Has the transition from one career to another been easy? Any major direction changes or bumps in the road? Did it go how you expected?

By summer 2019, I’d developed prototypes, spoken to consultants and sourced some incredible fabrics but there were parts of the business model that just didn’t feel authentic to me. So much of the fitness apparel industry centres around influencer marketing. I used to work for a skateboard footwear brand and in a way, skate brands have always leveraged influencer marketing by sponsoring athletes. But as a sponsored skater, you would represent the brands who supported you until you or they moved on. Often people would ride for the same company for decades. Today’s influencer marketing isn’t like that. I’ll see someone on Instagram telling me how amazing a brand is one day and then another competing one, the next. I’m not saying that was the only reason I didn’t move ahead with the idea but it was a barrier that I came up against that was significant enough to stop me moving forwards.

That was a difficult time. I’d sunk a year and a half into the development of the brand and the prototypes, I’d called in favours and I’d turned away work, all with the idea that this was it. This was the project that I was passionate about and that would give me direction and purpose again. I knew I didn’t want to go back to consulting but I also wasn’t prepared to walk away from everything else I’d done. I was sure there must be a way to combine everything I’d learnt over the past 13+ years of digital marketing and the last 18 months of immersing myself in the world of clothing design and manufacturing.

That summer, I literally locked myself away. I started journaling to get my thoughts out of my head. When I look back on what I wrote at that time, it all seems so dark and so inward.

“What’s wrong? Why can’t I make anything work? I’d had a successful business for 10 years. Was that it though? Was that my one chance of ‘success’? Have I wasted my time since then? Have I put all my effort in the wrong direction? What was wrong with me?”

Looking back, I can see so clearly how important it was to get that stuff out. Some days, I’d wake up and my very first thought was something I’d already written down the day before but I just kept writing them down. Over time, I was able to take the edge off some of the negativity I was feeling.

I have a notepad that I constantly write ideas in. Even while I was focused on the athleticwear, I was still writing new business ideas in it as they came to me. I can still really clearly remember the day that I felt like I’d turned the corner because I picked it up again. My friend Matt and I have a mutual love of the Datsun 240z. My neighbour had one when I was growing up and where other sports cars of the age may not have stood the test of time, the 240z is simply beautiful.

Datsun 240z Swiss Commission by MZR Roadsports

We’d been talking about finding one that needed a full overhaul, one where the body and chassis were in fairly good condition but the engine was totally shot, taking that and converting it to be electric. We figured that since it was probably destined for the scrapyard, we certainly wouldn’t be making it any worse by stripping out the engine and making it battery powered. The only problem for me was that I was totally overwhelmed by the idea of renovating and converting a car. I’ve always been handy and I did my degree in Design Technology so I’ve got a good handle on a lot of the processes but maybe that was the problem — I just couldn’t wrap my head around a project of that size and complexity.

Around the same time, I got an email through from Pinterest with a bunch of suggested boards. Because I’d been looking into t-shirts for the athleticwear brand, one of the pins was of a guy in a well cut tee, sat on his motorbike. I looked at that and thought,

“A bike is like a car…but smaller. I wonder if we could convert a motorbike to be electric?”

That sent me down a rabbit hole for weeks, researching bikes, looking at YouTube channels of other people who’d done it before, reading forums, learning about electric motors and Lithium batteries. I could see that it was definitely possible and I started to get excited again. I felt like a switch had been flicked and my brain started churning through the possibilities.

What if we documented the process of building the bike? We could create authentic and unique marketing around the project. We could genuinely engage with other likeminded people and build a community. We could publish what we learn and we could help others to do the same. That kind of platform might also create an audience of people looking for clothing that was aesthetically inspired by the process of building motorbikes and that was sustainably produced.

Things have moved on since then, I’ve moved away from the electric conversion for now while we figure out the standard process of renovating motorbikes, but fundamentally the idea remains the same. We find bikes that are bound for the scrapyard, unwanted and overlooked but with incredible potential. We pour care, time and effort into them and create something beautiful, functional and desirable. The same goes for the clothing — especially the jackets. We’re sourcing end of line fabrics, material that’s no use to larger brands and would otherwise again be bound for the scrapheap. And we pour the same care, time and effort into them to create something completely different but equally beautiful, functional and desirable. We can tell the development story of both and they align really well.

“We find bikes that are bound for the scrapyard, unwanted and overlooked but with incredible potential. We pour care, time and effort into them and create something beautiful, functional and desirable.”

I get it, it’s not like a petrol engine motorbike is particularly sustainable but keeping it out of landfill feels like we’re taking a step in the right direction. The same goes for the clothing. At the end of the day, it’s like Patagonia say;

“Everything we make has an impact on the planet.”

There’s always going to be a sense of inauthenticity when you’re creating a consumer product and talking about sustainability when the ultimate sustainable choice is not to make or buy anything. But I also feel like every step I can take in the right direction and every piece of clothing I sell potentially takes a sale away from another brand who isn’t giving sustainable and ethical practices a second thought.

What lesson(s) have you learnt that you would tell other people who aren’t fulfilled doing what they’re doing?

It’s like I said earlier, burn out doesn’t heal fast. And the only way out of it is through a lot of introspection which can be really tough. Something I learnt during that process though, was that I used my agency as a shield. It wasn’t until I brought it to a close that I realised just how much I used it to describe me. “My name is Mark and I run a successful agency” — that might have been ok while I was running the agency but what happens when you take that away? When we brought it to a close, I felt like I’d lost so much of who I was.

I don’t regret anything I’ve done, or how I’ve spent my time but I do think that describing yourself by what you do, especially if that’s to yourself, can be really dangerous. Becoming wrapped up and consumed by your achievements and how that appears to others rather than your own personal development can put too much power into something that’s ultimately out of your control.

“I’d tell myself to trust in the process. I’d tell myself that recovery takes time.”

I’d tell myself to trust in the process. I’d tell myself that recovery takes time but I’d also tell myself not to close down and become defensive, hanging on to the old me. I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for 7 years and some of the lessons I learnt there are just as applicable off the mats.

There are only 5 belt colours in jiu jitsu; white, blue, purple, brown and black. When I was a white belt, I was clueless and it took a certain mental strength to keep going back knowing that I would leave with, at the very least, my ego badly bruised. Once I passed my test and got my blue belt, not much changed but just before I got my purple belt, I felt really confident. I knew what I was doing to an extent and I knew I could hold my own in certain situations and so I knew I could experiment. I would open up my guard and try new things all the time. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t but by opening up I was able to learn every day. Once I got my purple belt, all of that changed. I didn’t know it at the time but I felt like I had something to prove and couldn’t possibly allow myself to be beaten by a lower belt. My ego 100% got the better of me and all the fun went out of it. I kept going for a year but I’d lost the fire and I’d stopped learning. When I injured my elbow, it was the perfect excuse to stop going.

The same process slowed my ability to recover from burn out. I was trying to hold on to my previous success and was only ever part committing to anything I was doing. I was playing defensively just as I was when I got my purple belt. Even now, I constantly have to tell myself to let go and not to fear the unknown. To trust that, no matter what happens, I’ll learn and I’ll grow.

Do you think people are born to be entrepreneurs?

With kids and behaviour, there’s always the nature vs nurture argument. From what I can see, I think that both play equally important parts. My Dad was a pilot and I’d see him coming in off three days down route, shattered. One or two days off, trying to sleep during the day with a body clock on who knows what timezone and he’d be back at it again. To be off over a weekend was rare and he could choose whether he was home for Christmas or New Year. His roster was different every month and he had no control over his time. He never complained, or not that I heard anyway but I guess I grew up seeing some pretty unpleasant effects of working for someone else. I think that some people start their own ventures out of necessity and others because that’s what they’ve grown up around.

Do you think people are born to create?

It’s funny, I often hear people saying “oh I’m not creative” but I think creativity exists in the every day. How someone plans out their day only to move things around, reacting to something that’s changed. How someone lays the table, puts a meal together, trims the leaves on their plants or lines up the bottles of shampoo in their bathroom. I think that as humans, we are all innately creative.

eLSeed transforms buildings with incredible, thought-provoking murals

I think that the desire to create and the extent to which the act of creativity is part of your life sits on a scale. Just like anything, each of us will have degrees to which we are creative and that goes for the visibility of that creativity too. Someone who is driven to paint and has worked on their craft to create beautiful murals that cover buildings, that person’s creativity is visible for everyone to see. The home cook who serves up dinner every night, putting meals together from individual ingredients is just as creative but to the world, that creativity is far less visible. At the same time, the platforms exist now for us to be able to share our creations with people around the world and when there’s nearly 8 billion of us on the planet, you can guarantee that someone else will connect with what you’re doing.

Tell us about a project you’ve worked on. Why does it stand out to you and what did you learn during the process?

A concept I always liked the sound of but could never put into practice until recently is David Hieatt’s advice to “Do one thing well.” To run the agency in the way it was set up, I was always jumping from one thing to another. I tried writing out prioritised to-do lists, but by the time I got halfway through, everything had changed and I’d have to start again. I was supposed to come back to the UK from Bahrain in April 2020 but because of Covid-19, that got pushed back to August. I’d brought my work to a close and was ready to go so I knew I needed a project to focus on. I bought myself a £300 Honda CGL125 pizza delivery bike that was on it’s last legs and spent 4 months renovating it. For 4 months, that was pretty much the only thing I did. Then, when we did finally fly back, Amy and I had to quarantine for 2 weeks. I had no choice but to focus on things that I could do in the house. So I completed online courses I’d signed up to but had never gotten past week one and I developed my thoughts around Barnfield more than I had in 6 months before.

Focusing on one thing at a time allows you to finish what you start. It can be fun and exciting to start new projects but ultimately, you never get the sense of confidence, accomplishment or pride that you do when you finish something.

Do one thing well. It’s enough. Hiut Denim

Any other words of wisdom or anything else you’d like to share?

I’m not saying anything new when I say we only have one life. That thought doesn’t make me super productive, making the most of every possible waking minute, sleeping as little as humanly possible or micro-dosing on acid to open my eyes to new possibilities. But what it does do, is it grounds me. Every time I come up against a barrier, I feel the fear of the unknown or the fear of failure, I ask myself how I would feel if I let it stop me and if I were to die without overcoming it. Sometimes, I’m good with stopping. Other times I’m not and I know then that I need to stay the course.

If I’ve learnt anything over recent years, it’s that I truly don’t believe you can find what you’re passionate about by searching for it. For me, that narrative suggests that passion is discovered at the start of the process. Where this can cause heartache is when we invariably come up against something difficult or unpleasant. It’s all too easy to think “but I just found my passion, surely I should enjoy every moment?!”. Rather than using that moment of conflict to overcome and move forwards, it can become an insurmountable barrier and send you off in another direction yet again trying to find your passion.

I do believe though, that you can find your purpose and that is incredibly powerful. Purpose will see you through the hard times. Just look at parents over recent months, tearing their hair out home-schooling their kids. But of course, they keep going, they keep trying their absolute hardest because their sense of purpose is to make sure their kids get the best chance at life. Purpose builds passion.