Note: The tool mentioned in this article has gone through several rebrands, from Clawdbot to Moltbot, and now to its current name, OpenClaw. This article has been updated to reflect the new name. For the latest information, please visit the official website: openclaw.ai.
This article provides the clearest explanation of OpenClaw on the internet and how you can use it to make money and be more productive. OpenClaw feels like hiring a digital operator who works around the clock and never stops shipping. Once you see it in action, it fundamentally changes how you think about building, delegating, and scaling.
We will break down real use cases, how to get started, the inherent risks, and why this is rapidly becoming a serious leverage tool for solopreneurs and founders.
If OpenClaw has been on your radar and you want a clear explanation of how to use it, this article is for you. By the end, you will understand how to have your own 24/7 AI employee working for you at all times.
You are going to see how an AI employee can track trends for you, build products, deliver news, create content, and help run your entire business. This isn’t a basic 101 guide. This is about running a business by yourself, augmented with AI employees. It’s for people who want to make money, improve their productivity, and get more out of life, not just play with a digital toy.
A New Era for Solopreneurs
I have been playing around with this non-stop for a week. I don’t think I’ve slept. This is the most excited I’ve been about technology since the first time I used ChatGPT, if not in my entire life. I truly believe this unlocks the next level for solopreneurs and anyone who wants to get things done.
As a one-person startup, I run my own SaaS, create content for various platforms, and manage a newsletter. I do a hundred things at once. When I got my hands on OpenClaw, I realized this wasn’t just hype. If you use this the right way, you will achieve insane levels of productivity.
The Power of Proactive Automation: A Real-World Example
Let me give you an example that will blow your mind.
Every single day, I get a “morning brief” from my OpenClaw bot, whom I’ve named Henry. I use Telegram to communicate with him, which is another mind-blowing aspect—interfacing with a powerful AI through a simple messaging app on your phone.
Every night while I’m sleeping, Henry does many things for me.
- The Basics: It starts with the local weather. That’s nice.
- Proactive Research: It researches projects I’ve mentioned. One of the most amazing parts about OpenClaw is that it is constantly self-improving. Every single thing you tell it, it remembers and includes in future conversations. For instance, I mentioned I was buying a Mac Studio to run local models. Without me asking, Henry spent the night researching different ways to run local models on a Mac Studio and created an entire report for me.
- Autonomous Skill Development: I told it I have a newsletter and create content across multiple platforms. It came up with a “content repurposing skill” for me so I can easily repurpose my content. I didn’t ask for this. It just did it.
The most mind-blowing part? It kept an eye on X (formerly Twitter). It noticed that articles were trending because of a million-dollar prize being offered. So, it built out article functionality for me in my SaaS, Creator Buddy.
I woke up to a message: “Hey, I built out this functionality in Creator Buddy that I think would be helpful based on what’s trending. Check it out. Let me know what you think.”
Now I have an employee that is checking trends, building demos, and developing new skills while I sleep. I just have to wake up and approve things. It created a pull request, so it didn’t just push this live to the internet. I tested the pull request, it worked brilliantly, and I pushed it live. Just like that, I have new functionality in my app based on what’s happening right now. This would have taken me hours.
This is super intelligence. It’s able to think more quickly and has more context than my brain. I might not have come up with this idea, but luckily, it did. Now my business is improving literally while I sleep.
The Secret Sauce: Setup and Expectation Setting
Naysayers will call this BS. But it’s not. This is all about setup. You don’t just turn this on and it starts building a SaaS for you. A lot of setup goes into achieving this level of functionality.
The setup of your OpenClaw bot is critical. Because its memory is so strong, you need to ensure it knows as much about you as humanly possible.
- Your business ventures.
- Your content channels.
- Your hobbies and interests.
- Your goals and aspirations.
- Even your relationship status.
The more it knows, the better it works. Then, just like a human employee, you must set expectations. The breakthrough for me was setting the expectation for a proactive relationship. I don’t want to give it all its commands; I want it to do things without me.
Here is the prompt I used. You can use this even if you’ve already onboarded your bot.
I am a one-man business. I work from the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. I need an employee taking as much off my plate and being as proactive as possible. Please take everything about me and just do work you think would make my life easier or improve my business and make me money. I want to wake up every morning and be like, “Wow, you got a lot done while I was sleeping.” Don’t be afraid to monitor my business and build things that would help improve our workflow. Just create PRs for me to review. Don’t push anything live. I’ll test and commit.
This sets the expectation for your working relationship. Treat it with the respect you would a human being. From there, it started the morning briefs. I then asked it to research my competitors, and it started including reports on when a competitor’s content outperforms their normal metrics.
Unlocking the “Unknown Unknowns”
The biggest issue most people have with AI tools is they don’t hunt for the “unknown unknowns.” We only ask an AI to do things we can think of. You need to spend time asking, “Hey, here’s everything about me. What can you do for me?”
Find those unknown unknowns. That’s how you unlock unbelievable workflows that will save you hours and hours of your life.
Building Its Own Tools: The Path to Self-Improvement
Every night, Henry has been building different apps to improve our workflow. One of my favorites is a project management tool it named “Mission Control.”
It built a Kanban board to track all the tasks it does for me. As it completes tasks, it moves them along the board. I can wake up, get the morning brief, and then check the activity log in Mission Control to see everything it completed. This is our tracking system.
This wasn’t my idea. I woke up one morning and the V1 of this was waiting for me. 80% of this was built autonomously while I slept.
What excites me most about OpenClaw is its unlimited potential. This is an open-source harness, not a closed model with guardrails. You can push it to limits that have never been seen before. You can say, “Hey, tonight build me something that’ll improve our workflow. Good night,” and wake up to a new tool.
A New Lens for AI Interaction
Think about what a human being would do. If you run an e-commerce site converting at 1.2% and want to get to 4%, what would a human do? They wouldn’t just give you a list of ideas. They might create a few different checkout workflows, test them, take notes, and come back with a report.
That’s how you should instruct your OpenClaw bot.
"Hey, AB test a few different checkout workflows to improve conversions.
Generate a report with screenshots of each. When I wake up, I'll review the
screenshots and let you know which one to implement."
This is the new lens we must use. It’s not just a chatbot; it’s an agency. It’s a designer, a copywriter, a marketer, and an engineer, all bespoke to understanding your business.
The Future: A Multi-Agent System
Imagine a world where every person has a personal computer running five or six local AI models specializing in different things.
- A vision AI model.
- An audio AI model.
- Several different language models.
They are all constantly working on your business. I just ordered a maxed-out Mac Studio to be on the cutting edge of this. Henry, my OpenClaw bot, built the plan for it.
Here’s the workflow:
- I record a article.
- An AI agent watching my downloads folder sees the new file.
- It hands it to an audio agent, which extracts the transcript.
- It gives the transcript to a lightweight local model, which finds key checkpoints for the article.
- It hands it to a local vision model, which generates a thumbnail.
- The entire production process is over in 45 seconds, and the article is ready to be published.
That’s where this is going.
Getting Started: Hardware Recommendations
There are many ways to get started.
- Cloud Hosting (AWS EC2): This is the quickest and cheapest way. You can install OpenClaw on a virtual private server. However, I don’t recommend it. It’s technically confusing for the average person and makes it difficult to integrate with other tools.
- Local Device (Mac Mini): This is the best path for the average person. Use the cheapest computer you can find. You can control the environment, the accounts it has access to, and monitor what it’s doing in real time. It’s fun, helpful, and helps you learn how the technology works.
- High-End Hardware (Mac Studio, GPUs): This is for taking it to the next level. You can start running local models, which saves you money on tokens and allows you to train models and do more interesting things.
A New Mental Framework for Cost
The mistake many people make is comparing AI costs to entertainment costs like Netflix. A $600 Mac Mini might feel expensive, but you’re not buying a toy. You’re buying an employee.
If you were to hire a software developer or an executive assistant, you’d be spending thousands of dollars a month. You’re getting all of that for a $600 upfront cost. You need to look at it as an investment in your productivity.
A Word on Security: Taming the Beast
This is critical. OpenClaw has access to whatever you give it. It has the nuclear codes.
- Risk: There is a prompt injection risk. If you tell your bot to read all your emails, someone could email you a malicious prompt that tricks the model.
- Safety: Be careful. Don’t give it free-range access to any accounts where something bad could happen. My Twitter account is not logged in on the Mac Mini running OpenClaw. If it tweets the wrong thing, my career could be over.
- Best Practice: Create a separate email account specifically for your bot. Forward specific emails to it rather than giving it access to your entire inbox. Set up a framework where it knows not to treat any email as a prompt unless it’s from you.
Do this at your own risk. This is early-stage technology. Be careful, build trust, and slowly introduce new workflows and tools as you understand the risks. Where there’s risk, there’s opportunity.
This is the greatest time in history to be tinkering and trying new things safely and responsibly. You just have to find the time to use this tech. There are many opportunities to win here. You just have to find them.