Ivan Lourenço Gomes’s journey into online teaching began with a leap of faith and a need to adapt.
Fresh out of business school in Brazil, he moved to Ecuador for family reasons, but finding stable work there proved challenging. To improve his prospects, Ivan immersed himself in courses on coding, design, and other skills. Through this learning journey, he developed a deep admiration for his instructors and began envisioning himself in that role, helping others learn. Though initially shy and unsure about creating videos, a camera confidence course by Phil Ebiner taught him how to appear confident on camera and reinforced that success depends less on talent and more on discipline.
By 2015, Ivan was experimenting with video course creation while advancing in his coding studies. But Ecuador didn’t feel like home, so he relocated to Portugal to start a Master’s program in Information Systems, working tirelessly to bring his family over. In December 2016, he launched his first course on Microsoft Excel. By January, it began gaining traction, and within ten months, his family joined him in Portugal as his online teaching and coding careers took off.
It all came full circle in 2017 when he launched his first programming course, initially teaching in Portuguese and later expanding to English, Spanish, and French. Teaching while still learning wasn’t easy, but Ivan’s knack for simplifying complex topics struck a chord with students who once found coding intimidating.
Inspired by Philip Ebiner, SCOTT DUFFY, Diego Davila, Glaucio Daniel Santos, Paulo Andrade, and others, Ivan has become a trusted instructor in the Udemy community. Today, with 29 courses and having just reached the milestone of 500,000 students, he reflects on a journey that transformed his life and remains dedicated to supporting others on similar paths.
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