The Challenge
After giving up alcohol in 2015, Janet Gourand founded Tribe Sober to support people building an alcohol-free life. She brought her own experience and a career in HR to the community, developing a signature course and training materials around the questions people face along the way.
Those questions often come up in everyday situations: how to navigate a social occasion, what to do when tempted to drink, or how to put the course's lessons into practice.
Janet wanted to make her program's knowledge available through a custom chatbot. At 75, she decided to build it herself.
The Solution
Using Pickaxe, Janet created JanetGPT, an AI companion grounded in Tribe Sober's signature course materials, and embedded it on her website.
She brought the program's existing training materials into the chatbot so members could ask questions about situations they were experiencing. It gave her another way to share resources she had already developed for her community.
Janet built the chatbot herself without hiring a development team. Her understanding of her community and the materials she had created became the foundation for the tool.
The Results
Janet took JanetGPT from an idea to a working chatbot on Tribe Sober's website, then trialled it with 20 users. During the initial trial, members could ask about everyday challenges, including socialising while staying alcohol-free.
Her work even earned her a feature in The Telegraph, bringing JanetGPT and the story behind it to a wider audience.
Following the trial, Janet planned to extend access to all Tribe Sober members. She was also considering a standalone offering, potentially called Your Sober Companion.
Why It Works
Janet brought personal experience, established course materials, and an understanding of her community's questions to the project. Pickaxe gave her a way to turn those resources into an interactive AI tool she could build and share herself.
JanetGPT adds a conversational way to access Tribe Sober's material alongside its existing course and community.
The Takeaway
Janet's story captures why we built Pickaxe: to help people turn what they know into something other people can use.
With her course materials and a clear audience, she created a tool for her community and opened up a new way to deliver her program.
Explore Tribe Sober to learn more about Janet's community and the program behind JanetGPT.