Note: The tool mentioned in this article, formerly known as Clawdbot, has been rebranded to OpenClaw. This article has been updated to reflect the new name and installation instructions. For the latest information, please visit the official website: openclaw.ai.
I’ve spent the last 48 hours with what I believe is the most impressive piece of AI technology since my first encounter with Claude Code. The capabilities it has unlocked for me, even as an advanced AI user, are genuinely unbelievable. This article will show you exactly why this technology is an absolute game-changer for using AI agents to produce real work—not just fluff, but tangible results that drive real businesses forward.
I’m talking about OpenClaw (formerly Clawdbot). It’s the talk of the town, and for very valid reasons.
The OpenClaw Phenomenon
After seeing the buzz on Twitter, I was skeptical. That skepticism vanished about two days ago when I installed it on an old laptop. It’s insane. The accessibility it provides for executing real work with agents, on the go, 24/7, is absolutely game-changing.
In this article, we’llwalk through how I set it up, the kind of work I’m accomplishing, and the potential it holds for you. We’ll also tackle hardware misconceptions, look at concrete examples of my own usage, and even build a new agent and workflow from scratch.
Dispelling the Hardware Myth
First, let’s bust a myth. You do not need to spend $600, $800, or $1,200 on a dedicated, always-on Mac Mini to run OpenClaw. You don’t.
OpenClaw will run on a potato. It doesn’t require a lot of memory or souped-up hardware. While tech enthusiasts enjoy buying new Mac Minis—and that’s perfectly fine—it’s not a prerequisite. Honestly, for what this tool unlocks, $600 is a small price to pay, equivalent to about three months of my Claude Pro Max plan. But you absolutely do not need it to get started.
A Word of Caution: I would not recommend installing OpenClaw on your primary computer. This is the machine with your important files, financial information, and personal data. OpenClaw, along with its dependencies like Anthropic and Claude Code, intentionally has fewer guardrails. If something went wrong, you could be in trouble.
My solution? I repurposed an old computer I was about to sell. It’s now my dedicated OpenClaw, which I’ve named Janet (a nod to The Good Place). This six-year-old Mac is running it perfectly fine, unlocking amazing automations I couldn’t achieve with any other AI tool.
Getting Started with OpenClaw
To begin, you visit openclaw.ai and copy the installation command.
# Run the official installer
curl -fsSL https://openclaw.ai/install.sh | bash
The installation process was a bit bumpy for me, taking about 15 minutes with a few hiccups. It wasn’t as smooth as installing Claude Code. However, I installed Claude Code right after and used it to decipher the issues. The official documentation is excellent, so consult it if you run into trouble.
What makes OpenClaw so impressive is its access to a vast array of tools, positioning it as a true personal AI agent. It’s open source, hosted on GitHub, and completely free. It’s not owned by Mega Corp X, Anthropic, or OpenAI. If the original creator disappears, the community can carry the torch. That’s the beauty of open source.
The Power of Integrations
Once installed, you’ll have a gateway or control center that mirrors your interactions from your chosen messaging app (I use Telegram). This dashboard provides diagnostics, channel setups, running sessions, and even cron jobs for scheduled tasks.
An AI agent needs four things: a way to receive commands, one or more models, a set of tools, and memory. OpenClaw’s tools are its arms and legs. It boasts over 50 integrations, including:
- Communication: Telegram, Slack, Discord, Signal, iMessage
- Productivity: Notion, Obsidian, Trello, Apple Reminders
- Security: 1Password
- Other: Spotify, Sonos, Twitter CLI, and many more.
I installed it on a Mac specifically to access the Apple ecosystem, like iMessage. I can literally tell Janet, “Hey, text my wife and tell her I’m recording and will be done in 15 minutes.” It’s incredibly powerful.
Use Case 1: Automating Substack Publishing
So, what can you really do with this? Here’s a project I’m incredibly proud of.
I wanted to repurpose my articles into long-form text for Substack. The problem? Substack is a closed ecosystem with no API or Zapier integration. Automating it seemed impossible.
But with OpenClaw, it became possible.
I gave Janet a simple prompt: “New project: I want to automate posting on Substack. For each article, get the transcript, run it through Claude to generate a long-form post and four short-form notes.”
Janet understood immediately and outlined a plan:
- Pull the article transcript.
- Send it to Claude for content generation.
- Use browser automation to post the assets to Substack.
To make this work, I had to log into my Substack account on the machine running OpenClaw and install the OpenClaw Browser Relay Chrome extension. This gives OpenClaw access to that specific browser window. Janet walked me through the entire process.
After a bit of back-and-forth (and a reminder not to close the laptop lid, which suspends the session), Janet generated a fantastic draft post on my Substack. It was about 95% perfect. After some feedback, it produced a high-quality article, complete with a link back to the original source.
Even better, we set up a cron job to publish the four short-form notes automatically, one per day at a random time between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. This entire content repurposing and publishing workflow is now fully automated. Amazing.
Use Case 2: Competitor Analysis with “YouTube Intel”
In my first conversations with Janet, I tasked her with another priority: monitoring competitors. We created a system called “YouTube Intel.”
I provided a few channels I respect, and Janet got to work.
- She pulled their channel IDs.
- She set up monitoring for new content.
- She analyzed their posting frequency, topics, and what content was performing best.
The system now runs twice a week, every Monday and Thursday at 9 a.m. Eastern, and delivers a report on what’s happening in my space. This intelligence directly informs my content strategy. It’s like having a custom AI agent for market research.
The Real Obstacle: Marketing, Not Product
Here’s the crucial insight from this experience. I haven’t connected OpenClaw to GitHub to automate software development for one specific reason: marketing is the biggest obstacle and opportunity right now, not building software.
I built another tool, Maestro, in about 24 hours. That’s not the hard part anymore. The challenge is marketing, building a brand, and acquiring customers. I’m staying disciplined and focusing my OpenClaw experiments on marketing, sales, and operations.
Building a product is easier than ever. Building a great company requires sales and marketing. That divide has never been wider.
Introducing Maestro: The Next Evolution
While OpenClaw is an amazing personal assistant, it’s still single-threaded. My conversations with Janet are a single text thread. This inspired me to create Maestro.
Maestro meshes the concepts of OpenClaw (accessible agents) with another powerful framework, Agent Zero (an AI agent framework). It’s a personal assistant that can spawn multiple, independent agents to perform different tasks simultaneously.
Out of the box, Maestro will have specialized agents for:
- Marketing
- Sales
- Operations
- Finance
- Customer Success
You can talk to one touchpoint—Enzo, the penguin mascot—and say, “Pull the revenue report from QuickBooks and tell me where we’re leaving money on the table.” The finance agent will handle it in the background. Maestro is open source, and I’m building it entirely in Claude Code.
The Future of SAS and the Primacy of Marketing
Creating a product is no longer the biggest barrier. For years, the advantage went to those who could afford to pay a magician to build software. That’s not the case anymore. Anyone can build a SaaS product now.
The result? A flood of competition.
The playbook for B2B SaaS is straightforward: create content, do outreach, participate in your space, and become a top-of-mind solution. This is incredibly hard to do, but it’s where the energy must go. The creation of the product is now, by far, the easiest part of the equation.
I’m incredibly excited about OpenClaw, Maestro, and the dawn of an agent-first world. This is an evolution we are all navigating. While I feel I’m on the leading edge, there’s still so much to learn. It’s both exciting and, at times, a little scary. The key is to adapt our business models and practices to take full advantage of these powerful new technologies.