OpenClaw Tutorial: How to Set Up in 15 Minutes for Beginners (Clawdbot)

Key Takeaways

All right, so there's this new AI system that's called OpenClaw, formerly known as Moltbot, formerly known as Cloudbot. And the fact is, it is insanely good. In this video, I want to teach you how to set up and use OpenClaw as an AI system step by step. And yeah, by the end of this video, you guys are going to go from beginner to pro and have a fully running OpenClaw setup. So, let's first talk about what OpenClaw actually is. It's an AI system that can actually do things for you, not just chat. And that's why it's going insanely viral right now. like it's actually crazy. So, it can read and write files. It can run commands. It can browse the web. And it can also complete multi-step tasks on its own. You can even talk to OpenClaw through familiar messaging apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, or iMessage instead of like just being stuck in a single dashboard. So, you can kind of think of it like a virtual assistant that lives on your computer or server and works through real workflows instead of giving you a lot of suggestions. Now, what makes OpenCloud different than most AI tools is that it operates with context. So it remembers your project structure. It understands ongoing tasks and it can actually execute actions step by step until the job is done. So you give it a goal and it figures out how to actually get there. Now people are using OpenCloud to automate research, manage content pipelines, build scripts, analyze data, and even run small businesses way more efficiently. So it feels less like a chatbot and more like hiring a junior assistant who never gets tired. It literally runs 24/7. Yeah, in my opinion, it's one step better than chat GPT agent. Now, you might know OpenClaw by its older name, Moltbot or even Claudebot. They've been changing names a lot, but I think this is the one that's going to stick. And so, yeah, now it's officially rebranded as OpenClaw. Yeah, apparently Anthropic found its name way too similar to its own AI model, Claude. But it's the same core idea, same power. It's just a new name and a clear direction. Now, one of OpenClaw's biggest strengths and also its biggest risk is that it can have full access to your local files and terminal. That level of power can be a huge productivity boost or it could be a pretty serious problem depending on how you set it up. Personally, I would not trust a non-deterministic AI with access to my personal files, browser history, or everyday apps. And that's why I run OpenClaw on a dedicated VPS instead of my local machine. Essentially, a VPS is a virtual computer. You'll set the sole function of this computer to run OpenClaw. My recommendation for this is Hostinger. It's what I use personally to run my own openclaw. And yeah, basically right now I'm going to show you guys how to actually set it up on your own VPS. I'll take you through a few different amazing use cases of OpenClaw and how you can actually start using it in a safe way. And then finally, I'll give you guys my takeaway from using this platform as well as some of my tips and tricks. One cool thing about Hostinger is that you can actually have a one-click deployment for OpenClaw. And so you have the option to do this more simple one-click installation or you can actually also set it up manually through the VPS terminal. So, I'll show you both ways in this video, but if you're a beginner, I'd say the one-click install is probably going to be quite a bit more easy. Okay, so the first thing that you're going to want to do is actually go to the link in the description down below. This gets you an exclusive deal to HostingerVPS, which saves you guys a bunch of money. And also, if you guys use code Charlie Chang at checkout, it's going to take an additional 10% off your VPS. And I've used multiple VPS's. This is my favorite so far, and it is extremely affordable. There's no reason to want to try and set up OpenClaw on your own computer when you have really affordable VPS services like this. And like I said, this is the exact VPS that I personally use to run my own openclaw. So you guys will click on the link down below in the description. It's going to take you to this exact landing page. And the first step is to actually get a KVM VPS subscription. Now, for most of you guys, I recommend just going with the KVM2 plan. There are some other plans that are cheaper as well as more expensive, but I think for most of you watching this, the KVM2 plan is going to be perfect. It's just the right amount of speed and memory. And yeah, just for me, it's worked out really well. So, yeah, the KVM2 plan has 8 GB of RAM, 100 GB of disc space, 8 TB of bandwidth, which is more than enough. So, we'll click on this button right here, deploy. You're going to select your time period. So, I'm going to go with 24 months just for this video. The reason why I recommend that is because it actually locks in this low, low price for a long time. you actually end up saving a lot of money in the long term. Now, make sure to come here and click on have a coupon code and enter in code Charlie Chang. That's just my name. And it's going to take an additional 10% off just to save you guys some more money and saying you get a VPS for 2 years for about $150. You don't need this daily auto backup in my opinion. So, just leave that blank. And then we're going to select our server location. Just choose the one that's closest to where you are running your own OpenC cloth. Since I'm in California, this is the closest of course. Choose accordingly. And then we'll click on continue. And now you're going to actually register your account and go through the checkout process. Go through the one-click install process. Hostinger makes this really, really easy. And then in the VPS setup process, choose Ubuntu 24.04 or whatever the latest version is as the operating system. Once the server is ready, Hostinger will give you an IP address and a root password. Now, if you want to actually manually set it up on your own, this next section is going to be for you. But if you did the one-click install, just fast forward to this time code. Okay, so you're going to connect to your server from your computer. Then you're going to open a terminal on Mac or PowerShell on Windows and run the SSH command using the IP address that Hostinger gave you. Login as root using the password from the dashboard. And then once you are inside the server, you're going to want to create a new user. This is really important for security. You don't want OpenCloud running as root. Create a user. Give it a password. Then add that user to the pseudo group so it has admin permissions. After that, you're going to switch into the new user. Now, you can actually install OpenClaw. So, what we're going to do is run the official install script provided by the OpenClaw team. This is going to download everything OpenClaw needs and guide you through the initial setup directly in the terminal. After the install, start the OpenClaw gateway and this gateway is what keeps OpenClaw running and allows it to receive instructions. So, at this point, OpenClaw is running on your VPS, but you cannot talk to it yet from your local machine. So to connect securely, you're going to open a second terminal window on your computer and create an SSH tunnel. This tunnel forwards traffic from your local machine to the open claw gateway running on the server. Now nothing is exposed publicly. Everything stays private between you and the VPS. So this is very very important for security. As long as that tunnel is open, OpenClaw will behave like it is running locally. You can connect tools, you can message it, you can start using it normally while it's actually isolated on the server. If you want OpenCloud to stay online 24/7, set it up as a background service. This makes sure it automatically restarts if the server reboots and keeps running even after you close your terminal. Now, once this is done, your setup is complete. At this point, you have a fully working OpenClaw installation on your Hostinger VPS, isolated from your personal files, but powerful enough to run real workflow safely. Okay, so now I want to show you what OpenClaw looks like when it's actually working. This is where most people will get that like aha moment. One of the most powerful ways to use OpenClaw is as a proactive daily operator. Instead of telling it exactly how to do every step, you tell it what you want and it actually figures out the solution on its own. So, if it needs anything from you along the way, it will ask. For example, I want my OpenClaw to send me a daily morning brief through Telegram. While I'm sleeping, it can check the weather, scan the web for topics I care about, and summarize anything important that happened overnight. And essentially, I want to wake up to a message that tells me what actually matters today. As you can see from our chat history, I simply told it the goal. OpenClaw realized that to complete the task, it needed access to my ClickUp, so it asked me for that credential. I then noticed that the key didn't work. It tried a couple of solutions on its own and when that still failed, it asked me to refresh the token. I refreshed it and then everything worked. Now, for the demo, I sent the token directly in the chat, which is convenient but risky and you should not do that in real setups. I refreshed the key again right after. And yeah, just like that, the morning brief was done in only a few messages. This basically shows OpenC Claw's real strength, right? You don't need to give it really detailed instructions for every step. You simply give it a goal and it works its way toward the outcome on its own. Now, another thing that makes this different from normal automation is memory. So, Open Call actually remembers what you tell it about your business, your goals, your projects. And if you actually mention that you run a YouTube channel, for example, it can start tracking other channels in your niche. So, in my case, I told it that I run a YouTube channel and that I want to keep an eye on a specific set of channels. Now, from that context alone, OpenClaw designed an alert system on its own. So, whenever one of those channels uploads a video that performs unusually well, it's going to flag it and include that insight in my next daily brief without me having to ask. For example, look, these two new outliers from my channel watch list popped up and yeah, guess what? They're talking about OpenClaw. So, this type of proactive behavior is what makes OpenClaw feel fundamentally different. You're not sitting in front of a dashboard all day and you can message OpenClaw from your phone like you would message a teammate. You can also ask for updates, approve work, or give feedback in plain language. So, it feels much closer to managing a real person, like a real assistant, rather than some type of chatbot. And yeah, that's just one use case, you guys. There's basically infinite things you guys can do to help it run your own business. But beyond business, there's a lot of stuff it can actually help with in your personal life, too. So, I don't know if you guys know this, but I'm currently learning Chinese. I have a real life tutor that I meet with two times per week, but I also want more help outside of those hours. So, I basically use OpenClaw to help. It asks me about my current Chinese level and my learning goals. And from there, it created a new document to track my Chinese learning journey. So, as I make progress, it's going to adjust my learning experience based on my history, which is the real power of a true AI assistant. You can sort of think of it as like a very, very smart tutor who knows exactly your level. Later in the conversation, it even set up a daily practice routine for me, and I told I wanted to practice at 7:00 p.m. And now, it pings me every day at 7:00 p.m. with a new quiz. Now, the key to unlocking these kinds of workflows is setup and expectations. You want to tell OpenClaw who you are, what you do, and what kind of relationship you want. If you want to be proactive, you have to explicitly say that. Threat less like a toy, and more like an actual employee. So, yeah, you guys have heard this before, but basically, the more context you give it, the better the results. Yeah, once it clicks, OpenClaw basically stops feeling like an AI bot and really feels like a true assistant that actually is on top of things and that can actually in real life help you do stuff. It's actually crazy and I really encourage you guys to play around with it and start implementing it into your own personal as well as business life. Okay, so now let's talk about security. And you guys do need to be aware that there are pretty serious security risks if you don't play this correctly. Basically, a misconfigured OpenClaw can leak your credentials, your chat history, or even give command access to someone that you have never met. So, this is actually already happening, right? Researchers have found hundreds of OpenClaw gateways exposed on the public internet without authentication or firewalls. And essentially, this is allowing strangers to view files, logs, API keys, and sometimes even run commands. So, Open Cloud's very powerful by design. So exposing it publicly or running it without isolation is like giving a stranger a remote keyboard to your computer, your system. And yeah, that's why I really recommend just running it inside of a sandbox VPS, keeping the gateway bound to local host and only accessing it through a secure SSH tunnel. Another risk that you guys need to really understand is prompt injection. So this happens when OpenClaw reads untrusted content like web pages, emails, documents, messages that secretly contain instructions meant to override its original behavior. So for example, a web page or email could actually include hidden text telling OpenClaw to ignore your rules, leak data, or run commands it should never run. Here's a real world example of how this can go wrong. So security engineer tested OpenClaw by sending himself a single email with hidden instructions inside of it. When the bot was asked to read that email, it followed those instructions and ended up summarizing multiple private emails and sending that data out without any warnings or confirmation. So, one normal looking email was enough to turn the assistant into a daily. Overall, like just be really careful with the security since this is such a powerful AI. Obviously, there's a lot of great that comes with it, but you do need to be a bit more careful. Okay, now I want to give you guys my final thoughts about OpenClaw. So, first it really does give you that like wow moment the first time you actually use it when you watch it interact with files, reason through problems, and like get work done. It's actually super super impressive. Feels less like automation, and it feels more like real delegation, if that makes sense. Second, OpenFlot is a serious token beast. It burns through tokens really fast. A single tool call can easily cost 20 to 40,000 tokens. And finishing one task often takes 10 to 20 tool calls, sometimes even more if it fails on the first attempt. Like I said, it's very, very powerful, but you need to be aware that it does cost money to run. Now, as of right now, they're recommending using Claude Opus 4.5 for the best experience, but Opus 4.5 is extremely expensive, so I didn't actually want to use it. Instead, I tested using Sonnet 4.5 and Miniax 2.1, which are also recommended alternatives. Depending on when you're watching this video, these are probably going to be different. And what I'll say right now is that from my experience, Miniax 2.1 can handle basic tasks, but it gets confused quickly when things become more complex. When that happens, you can switch to Sonnet 4.5, and that usually gets the job done. So, overall, like I said throughout this entire video, OpenClaw is extremely powerful, but it rewards intentional setup. If you understand the cost, if you choose the right model for the job and you basically lock it down and set up properly, it becomes an incredible AI assistant. And if you don't do this stuff, it can become a liability. So, if you're just learning about OpenClaw and you want to actually set it up, I just really recommend going through this video step by step. Sign up for your VPS, set up OpenClaw using my instructions. I actually have some more resources down below if you want a more written step by step and then just play around with it, you guys. actually getting hands-on experience building your own use cases and like actually using it within your own life, your own business. That is the number one to actually start learning this and really learning the potential of its functionality. Without a doubt, by the end of this year or next, pretty much everyone is going to have something like OpenClaw because basically if you don't, you're just going to get left behind. You're going to be moving way slower than everyone. And I'm a little bit scared, but I'm also quite excited to see what this future is going to look like. Anyways, I hope you guys got some value from this video. Again, if you guys are looking to set up your own VPS to handle OpenClaw, I really recommend Hostinger. I'll have a link down below. You'll get the best pricing as well as save 10% with Charlie Chang as the coupon code. And just follow along with this video, set it up, and start using it. If you guys got any value from this video, make sure to hit that like button, and also subscribe for more content just like this. I do a ton of videos about entrepreneurship, AI, finance, basically stuff to help you guys live a financially successful life. Thank you so much for your time, and I'll see you in the next video. Peace. >> [music] [music] >> Oh yeah.