Let's start by getting to know each other, tell us a little about you. 

Hi, I'm Karen Gudmunds. Born and raised in Iceland. Kinda been living out of a suitcase for almost two years now, but currently living the tropical life in beautiful Bali.  I'm a freelance web developer, photographer, and social media content creator. I'm passionated about outdoor travel, lifestyle and female entrepreneurship. I love helping brands capture the essence of their personality, and really telling a story through my work. My biggest passion is to circle the globe promoting scenic destinations, luxurious hotels, unique brand and stunning landscapes.  

My passion for photography goes beyond simply creating beautiful images. For me, photography is like therapy that gives a sense of purpose and self-expression. With my work I wish to inspire people to go outdoors more so they can get a better sense of how beautiful our planet is and why we must protect it. By showcasing my adventures on social media, I hope to inspire other people to take more alone time in nature for self improvement and healing. 

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I specialise in all things web development, photography, digital marketing, social media strategy management and content creation. I love nothing more than create beautiful imagery and content for brands and together we can make magic happens. 

Before the course you were working in hospitality and as a flight attendant, what made you want to change careers? 

After I graduated from University, I quickly started to feel trapped. Time was passing and nothing was happening. I wasn’t happy. Even though I just finished University, graduated from hospitality management which I still love so much to this day, but I quickly realised that I didn’t enough the hotel work life as much as I love hotels. Life became kinda boring and all the same every single day: wake up, work, make dinner, sleep, repeat. I quickly started living for the weekends, and that’s something I never thought I would experience in life. As each moment passed, I started to think about all the paths I didn’t take. I made the decision that I wanted something different, I wanted something more and from that moment, my story started to change. I started reading books written by successful people who saw life differently, people who didn’t want to follow the crowd. I started making decisions based on who inspired me the most. At that moment, I had no idea where I was going or where I would end up, but in that same moment I knew I needed to change my life and live life alive. 

Life was pretty normal to be honest. I was working as a restaurant manager for a conference hall in Iceland. I quit my job cause I was not happy with the managers and how they were treating me. I started working at my parents restaurant and that’s when I got very interested in social media management, food photography and web development. I had web development agency redo our entire website, because it was not functions at all, and all these weird spaces. This is when I had no experience in web development, but I guess I had the eye on how I wanted it to look like. I managed the instagram, Facebook, TripAdvisor. Cause I didn’t know anything how cameras worked we had to hire a photographer, but I knew exactly how I wanted the images to look like. At that moment, I got frustrated that I couldn’t just do it myself. This is when I started looking into food photography courses. 

I was working as a flight attendant at this time,  which was a lot of fun as I could travel to the U.S. Every time I had a layover in the U.S I was never ready to go back to Iceland. I knew at that point that I needed a change. That same year I was spending the holidays in Florida with my family, and I remember telling my dad in the car one night that I needed a change, and I would do anything to transform my life, I wanted next year to be different. I wanted to be happy. I was done living in the past, and done living life half way. 

I started making vision boards, to visually see what I wanted out of life. At that moment, I had no idea that I would end up in Bali but I put Bali on my vision board. My idea behind putting Bali on the vision board was to come here for vacation. Little did I know I was coming here to learn or even live and work remotely.   

What you tried and how that worked out?

To be honest I think I've bought all the online courses out there. I love nothing more than to learn a new skill, and I want to learn it all. I feel like all these courses that I invested in did help a little bit, some of them gave me a glance into photography, social media or web development.  First one, was New York institute of Photography. Definitely help me understand my camera better, but not sure how much better my photography skill improved. I got to understand the basic of photography, but not actually taking photos. I did few food photography courses, and I was very happy with both. Definitely improved my food photography skill. Understand the terminology much better. For social media I feel like I wasted my money. 

Were your family & friends supportive of your decision? 

My parents and my younger sister are my biggest supporters. I remember the day when I told them I was going to Bali to learn coding and social media management. They were so proud that I finally made the call to change the way I was living.  They have been so supportive right from the beginning and are so happy that I was able to create the life I wanted. 

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How you decided to invest in IOC?

I had wanted to start my own blog for as long as I can remember. I bought a preset template for Wordpress. I was not able to set it up as I did not understand anything. Therefore, I started looking for someone to setup the blog for me. The person who made the blog made it in WIX. Little did I know, that WIX were preset template block that you could not change. Hence, the website did not come out exactly how I wanted it to. It kinda annoyed me that the website wasn't looking like I wanted to.  That's when I started looking into learning web development. I figure if I could learn to code, I could make my own websites. 

Before investing in IOC I had decided to enrol in a master program in  NYC to study web development and graphic design. I had a scheduled meeting with a counselor during one of my layovers in NYC the summer of 2019. Few days before going to NYC, I saw an AD from IOC while scrolling on social media. Caught my interest right away, and I started massive research about the school, mentors and students that had done IOC in the past. I read all the reviews, blog posts and articles I could find online. Just to make sure it was real. To be honest it kinda screamed unreal to me. How can I learn to code a full custom website in 10 days. After a whole evening of looking into the school, I decided to contact them to learn more. Few days later I jumped on a call with Terry, day before my interview in NYC. He got me even more excited about the Institute of code, and from that same night I was sold. I told him to book me for both retreat in November. It’s safe to say that I never made it to my interview with the school counsellor in NYC. After a sleepless night, I figured that if I could learn how to code a custom website in ten days, and learn how to promote my own business in another ten days I would be better off doing that instead of two years of very expensive master program. And I would be able to earn money right away, just one month in….I would still be doing my master degree as I’m writing this. I had been trying to figure this all out one my own, by buying all these online courses where’s there’s no support. And in the end, I felt like I wanted to learn this all in a in person bootcamp. I also had been dreaming about getting back to Bali for years. It all sounded like the perfect dream, I could learn what I’ve been wanting to learn for years, and being in Bali at the same time. I’ve absolutely no regrets. Best decision ever. 

So 10 days of immersive study in Bali with students from all over the world.. tell us what it was really like on the bootcamp. 

I decided to invest in both web development and social media. For years I’ve been dreaming about owning my own creative agency, hence I decided it would be worth it to invest in both courses. I had a pinch me moment throughout the entire time I was there. It was a difficult step stepping out of the comfort zone, going to Bali on my own, but I’ve grown so much as a person since doing IOC. 

The IOC carries out their bootcamp in a quiet area in southern Canggu, away from any distractions whilst being just few minutes away from the bars, restaurants and beautiful Bali beached. We got to wake up in paradise every single day, yoga in the morning or morning swim, had delicious breakfast before diving into learning.  

The structure of the courses blew me away, it was very well organised from the minute you book the retreat. Terry is on top of all your travel plans, where to pick you up, food…and etc. With four mentors for a maximum of 16 students, you get the perfect mentor to student ratio. These are all hand picked mentors from every corner of the globe were as patient and they were knowledgeable. It was a great balance of play and learn with lessons, mentor time mixed in with sightseeing, relaxing and fun activities. Some people picked up coding quicker than others but the mentor team were really patient with those who struggled a bit. I started out with absolutely no knowledge what’s so ever of coding language and in only 10 days I completely learned how to to build my very own custom coded website. I’m not going to lie, it was intense 10 days of learning, and some days it’s felt more overwhelming. There was a lot of knowledge to wrap my head around, but surrounding myself with the right people in the right environment made it completely possible. Not only did I learn a new skill, but I gained a lot of confidence, knowledge and inside into the social media world, and most importantly skills to be able to start my own creative agency. 

My photography skills increased like scillions after the IOC. I looked up to Emile a lot when it comes to photography and I feel so lucky that I was able to learn everything I know from him. He's been the best mentor a girl could ask for. And still to the day, I can reach out to him for help when it comes to pitching a brand / look over my edits and just anything in general. What a gem. 

It must have been scary pitching for your first paid job after the bootcamp - tell us about that...

I'm not going to lie, I thought it was kinda weird pitching to brands in the beginning, and I thought all these companies would be reaching out to freelancers - boy I was wrong. You definitely need to show up and reach out. Luckily the team helps you write the perfect pitch to pitch to brands, and also teach you how to turn unpaid collaboration into a paid one. 

Let's talk about becoming a photographer and social media manager. What's your journey been like since the bootcamp? 

It's all I ever wanted. I walked away from the course with a clear strategy and plan for exactly how to grow my business. I knew which areas I needed to focus on and I knew how to pitch to brands to land both paid work and collaborations. Within the space of only few days I got invited to a trip to Komodo Island with group of creatives, bunch of free hotel stays, product and outdoor excursions - all in exchange for content creation and promotion on my Instagram. Now I’m getting paid to design and create website, photography and social media management for clients. As part of the course we all develop a 12-month strategy for ourselves, and I’m happy to report that I’m ahead of schedule, and I am able to keep pursuing this dream of a full-time freelancer. I am still so amazed that I was able to start working right away on brands projects, landing sweet collaboration. It’s not always sunshine, clean ocean and champagne cheers. It’s a hard work, and you definitely need to put all your effort into your work. The work does not come easy, you need to work for it. All this work is time consuming, and you need to be good at time management, and being able to switch from one project to another. I’ve never been a 9-5 kinda person, and I’ve always craved more freedom when it comes to work, and that’s exactly what I got after learning at the IOC.  Working for myself has changed my life a lot. And I’m still learning a lot. It’s a constant learning curve. I love working with new people and on interesting projects. 

I feel so fortunate to have close friends from the Institute of code that I can spend moments with and shooting outdoors just make me feel so genuinely fulfilled. It’s like pausing for a moment and being grateful, and realising how lucky we all really are to have this life, and the power to live the life we want to live. 

I’ve been working on few exciting website projects, and currently working on 3 new website projects for clients. And in the process on making a new website for my brand new creative agency, which I am so excited about launching very soon. I’m so grateful for all the strangers I met during the retreat who have become my best friends. 

It all feels unreal sometimes, waking up in paradise every single morning, walking out of my bedroom with my own swimming pool, five minutes to the beach is still unreal to me. 

Did you ever imagine that this could be your life? What are the best and worst parts of being your own boss? 

In my wildest dreams I never thought this would be my life. I still wake up every single morning, so proud of my self for stepping out of the comfort zone, decided to make a change in life which lead me to this incredible lifestyle. I have always wanted to be my own boss. It's great at most part but it can also be very challenging. Especially living in a tropical place like Bali. It can be hard to work by the computer all day long when you just want to be chilling my the beach drinking cocktail and having fun with friends. But luckily, being your own boss means you can make your own schedule, so if you want to do a beach day on a Monday you can. Being your own boss does not mean that you work less, it actually means you will put in way more hours than on a regular job but you're doing something that you love hence you're happy to put in all the work hours. 

Has it all been worth it? 

Institute of code is by far one of the best investments I have ever made in my life. I’m definitely living my dream life, being able to work remotely is everything I ever dreamt of doing. I feel like I’ve been having these pinch me moments for a year now, that this is actually my life. I got offer to go on a collaboration trip with few creative people to Komodo where I kinda realised I was living the dream. Another trip is when I went to group of friends to Nusa Lembongan on another epic collaboration where we stayed at this insanely stunning villa right on the ocean. Mandala the rock, was another collaboration trip where I celebrated my birthday with group of friends. Sitting on a beach in Uluwatu, shooting content for brands and working on a website project has been the highlight of my year, which makes my work so special. 

I feel so extremely fortunate to have met Tina and Emile. Total gems these two. They put all their time and effort to help you create the life you want, and give you all their secret on how to become successful in the career of your choice, whether what is as a photographer, web developer or social media manager. I can proudly say that they changed my life to the better. Not only did they help me create the life I have been dreaming about living for years, but they have become my best friends. 

I can proudly say I would not be at this place in my life if it werent for the IOC, Tina and Emile. I know I need to put a lot of time and effort into creating this life for myself, and do the work. But having them as my mentors by my side, and guiding me is everything I could ask for. 
 

Your clients mostly hire you for photography, social media management,  web development what does working with you look like? 

I'm very organised person, with eye to details. Good time management and I always go above and beyond for every client......