Hey, I'm the author of this article. Happy to answer questions if anybody have any.
How/where did you find a teacher like this? Finding a machine learning subject expert is already pretty difficult; knowing how to find one who is also a good teacher would be a useful skill in its own right.
https://www.reddit.com/r/MachineLearning/comments/4kcrqp/loo...
A couple of people contacted me, and the first one I gave a shot was actually a perfect fit. Maybe I was a bit lucky right there.
Since your story is a success, no matter how you personally feel about it, can you tell us how many hours per week in that year did you dedicate your time to ML? A rough estimate will be good.
What are your plans for future? Find a ML-only job?
Most of the times I've struggled with ML has been related to the fact that I've been trying courses/tasks that have been above my level. Once I find content which is tailored to my level, ML isn't that hard after all.
I definitely want to do more ML in the future, one way or the other.
Would turning the results into a probability be useful? (e.g. "how likely are we to get a customer based on this description?") Your staff could generate test data for that.
Thanks, great article!