The Den, a Denver-based social club for parents, is using ChatGPT Work to manage the administrative burden of expanding to a second location, saving its small team an estimated 10 to 15 hours per week.
What Happened
Founder and CEO Chandler Lipe implemented ChatGPT Work to help operationalize knowledge from The Den’s first location as they prepared for the opening of a second site. By integrating plugins for Gmail, Slack, and Google Drive, the team used the AI to gather and analyze business information, proposing next steps for planning and execution.
One specific use case involved a sudden opening for a liquor license hearing. The Den used ChatGPT Work to pull together documents, identify missing information, and convert files into required formats. According to Lipe, work that would have taken four days of searching and formatting was condensed into three hours of team review and completion.
The club also applied this workflow to grant applications, reducing the time required from three days to two hours. This efficiency allows the team to pursue more funding opportunities to support their growth.
Why It Matters
The case highlights how small businesses can leverage AI tools to scale operations without immediately increasing headcount. Lipe noted that ChatGPT Work allows The Den to "build the company we need before we have the size or resources of that company."
Leadership within The Den is using the tool for strategic decision-making as well. Lipe estimates that using ChatGPT to think through questions and develop proposals saves her about seven hours of exploratory conversations each week. For example, Brooke, the Head of Programming and Partnerships, used the AI to workshop a more consistent approach to partnerships by sharing data on past successes and failures.
Maia, the General Manager, utilized ChatGPT to organize financial reports, sales data, and inventory figures from point-of-sale systems into a digestible view for forecasting and purchasing decisions across both locations. Additionally, Lipe has begun using ChatGPT Voice to draft emails and capture meeting follow-ups during travel time, turning transit into productive work.
The Bottom Line
The Den plans to explore OpenAI’s Codex to build customized systems, including a member app for check-ins and class registration, improved connections between point-of-sale systems, and Slack alerts for cross-location communication. The company maintains that while AI accelerates administrative tasks, human teams still review output for accuracy and make final decisions.