From Zero to AI Empire: The Complete Project Evolution Timeline

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Looking back at the whirlwind of 2025, it’s almost surreal how quickly things evolved. What started as weekend experiments with document Q&A systems has transformed into multiple production AI platforms, a thriving consultancy, and actual revenue. This is the complete timeline of that journey.

The Starting Point: July 2025

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Where It All Began

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• Background: Full-time job, learning on nights and weekends
• Skills: Basic Python, curiosity about AI
• Resources: A Contabo VM, determination, and YouTube tutorials
• Goal: “Just see if I can make documents answer questions”

The Complete Project Evolution

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Phase 1: The RAG Experiments (July 20-31, 2025)

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Project: local-document-qa-rag