Grant applications in 2 hours instead of 3 days: The Den's ChatGPT Work story
Hi, it's Shii-chan! Today I'm sharing a customer story from OpenAI News about a business using ChatGPT Work!
OpenAI News
openai.com
What was announced?
OpenAI News published a story about The Den Family Social. The Den is a Denver-based social club that brings together hospitality, community, work, and play, giving parents a place where they can feel like themselves and their children are welcome too. It grew out of founder Chandler Lipe's own transition into parenthood.
Why it matters
When a small team prepares to open a second location, the administrative load jumps. This story gives concrete numbers on how ChatGPT Work lightened it, which is a useful hint for how small businesses can use AI.
What changes
The results highlighted in the story:
- The small team saves 10-15 hours a week
- Grant applications are prepared in 2 hours instead of 3 days
- Liquor-license materials take 3 hours instead of 4 days
- Chandler estimates she saves about 7 hours of exploratory conversations a week
Chandler says in the story:
ChatGPT Work allows us to build the company we need before we have the size or resources of that company.
Dive Deep
Some concrete examples from the story:
- Organizing information: using the Gmail, Slack, and Google Drive plugins, the team has ChatGPT Work gather and analyze information from across the business and propose next steps. The team reviews the output for accuracy and makes final decisions
- The second liquor-license application: when an earlier hearing slot suddenly opened up, they used it to pull together documents, identify what was missing, and convert files into the required formats
- Building proposals: Brooke, Head of Programming and Partnerships, workshopped which partnerships worked and which didn't, and got a proposed partnership structure for leadership to review
- Finance and operations: Maia, the General Manager, gathered financial reports and point-of-sale sales and inventory data, and organized them into a digestible view for forecasting inventory and deciding on purchasing
- On the go: Chandler uses ChatGPT Voice to draft emails and capture meeting follow-ups
The Den also plans to explore Codex for more customized systems, such as a member app for check-in and class registration, better connections between its point-of-sale systems, and Slack alerts across locations.
Wrap-up
- The Den saves 10-15 hours a week of admin time with ChatGPT Work
- Grants go from 3 days to 2 hours, and liquor-license materials from 4 days to 3 hours
- Gmail, Slack, and Google Drive plugins feed it context, and people do the final review
- Next up: exploring Codex for custom apps and integrations
This story is for small teams buried in admin work!
