Here’s why doing the grunt work yourself is the ultimate blueprint for keeping early costs low, understanding your operations and knowing exactly who to hire when it’s time to scale.

I started my medical business, MedLab International, with only an $8,000 credit card. I used that money to pay for my website and the first batch of inventory, but it also left me in a difficult position. Unless I could start bringing in orders and delivering on my promises to customers fast, I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent.

So, with no outside investment and very little money to work with, I couldn’t afford to hire people to do the work for me back then. I had to figure out how to run the business myself.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but having to do everything myself taught me how my business actually worked. When I eventually started hiring, I had a much better idea of what I needed from people because I’d already done their jobs myself.

When you’re bootstrapping a business, you don’t always have the money to hire someone every time a new job needs doing. In the early days of MedLab, that meant I had to do pretty much everything myself.

I packed boxes in the warehouse, managed inventory and negotiated directly with suppliers . I couldn’t afford a forklift, so I climbed warehouse racks to move boxes around. m. on Saturdays to make sure customers got their orders on time.

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