Caleb Boxx, Founder of Automate Channels, Made Millions by Working With Teams of Freelancers

In Partnership with Ascend Agency

 

Caleb Boxx is the millionaire 22-year-old founder of Automate Channels, a business that helps YouTube creators automate their channels and make more content — and money — while putting in far fewer hours. 

His ingenious business model led him to early success and placed him squarely at the center of Gen Z entrepreneurship thought leaders. His half-million Instagram followers regularly check his content for business ideas, inspiration, and tips. 

He’s the man behind the YouTube trend toward faceless videos that let your favorite creators upload content daily instead of just once or twice per week. Though he started small, with just a handful of on-demand helpers, today he leads a team of 200 and works with creators and his staff to create incredible content for his clients — who have a combined one billion subscribers.

This Gen Z YouTube expert knows a bit about starting businesses. He designed and built his first website at 11 years old and soon had paying clients clamoring for his web design services. After becoming interested in YouTube, he saw a gap in the market and a place where he could assist some of his favorite creators by finding a way to help them make more videos in less time and save time on writing, filming, editing, and producing. 

One integral part of his business plan was using teams of freelancers to create automated content. To this day, he continues to work with and develop relationships with freelancers, who he says are indispensable for many businesses. 

Below, we delve into how and why Boxx advises that freelancers can enhance your business. 

Cost Effective

Working with freelancers is cost-effective. Though it may depend on the product or service that you sell, working with non-salaried help usually helps organizations save money. 

For example, if your team is freelance and remote, you may not need to rent office space, which saves on rent costs, power bills, computers, wifi, and so much more. And, since freelancers rarely work full-time and are classed as independent contractors rather than employees, founders save the costs of unemployment insurance, health insurance, 401(k) contributions, and more.

Freelancers also work for negotiable rates, meaning that you can work with each one on a mutually agreeable payment rate or offer each one a different rate based on their individual skills, experience, and contributions to your projects.  

Work On-Demand

If you work in an industry that goes through busy and quiet periods, such as education-related fields or anything connected to seasons and holidays, having workers on an as-needed or on-demand basis will be a lifesaver. 

“Hiring employees is too risky when you’re just starting out and not sure how busy you’ll be from week to week. Using freelancers is perfect. They are grateful for the work, and you often come across some insanely brilliant people you can begin to work with more formally if you want to,” advised Boxx. 

Having on-demand help means that when you have lots of projects, you can engage as many freelancers as you need, and when times are slow, you can handle the workload yourself and don’t need to pay anyone. 

“Any founder who has walked through a room of employees chatting and scrolling through their phones during a workflow downturn will know exactly what I mean. Who wants to pay a room full of people with nothing to do?” said Boxx. 

Happy Workers

Perhaps Boxx’s favorite aspect of engaging freelancers is how happy they often are to have work coming in from you. These workers value their freedom, and you are helping them live the lifestyle they want, making them pleasant to work with. 

And you can’t discount that freelancers won’t look at you as a boss but as their client — someone they will bend over backward to please since they want to retain your projects.

“Freelancers are typically more hungry for work and experience than a full-time staff member you hire off the street. They know what it's like to try to hunt for their next job. They’d rather hold on to steady and reliable clients,” said Boxx.

Building Bonds

Working with freelancers also allows you the chance to get to know them better and more slowly than someone you interview for 15 minutes before deciding if you want to hire them. 

By working with professionals on a project-by-project basis, you get to observe their work ethic, attitude, quality of their work, and more. Then, if you decide that you’d like to have a more formal professional relationship with them, you can broach that topic from a place of knowledge of all their strengths, values, and weaknesses. 

Building these relationships over time also means you don’t have to go through the expensive and time-consuming hiring process, nor the messy firing process if things don’t work out. When things don’t work out with a freelancer, you simply don’t send them any more work. 

Boxx had one such experience with one of his first video editors. “I worked with my first freelance video editor in 2017 or 2018, and we gelled really well,” recalled the founder. “We developed a loyalty to each other based on mutual respect and admiration for each others’ skills. When my business went through a rough patch, he offered to edit videos for free until I got back up, running, and making money. Now, that former freelancer runs my India office, managing more than 50 video editors.”

With this deeper understanding of how freelancers can enhance and benefit your organization, you will begin enjoying the same benefits as Boxx.

About Caleb Boxx and Automate Channels

Caleb Boxx is a founder of YouTube Automation, a business model that allows people to automate their YouTube channels creating passive income. Boxx has helped hundreds of content creators. To learn more about Caleb Boxx, please visit www.automatechannels.com/