We Built It Bigger. Then We Built It Better. Business Growth Lessons From 22 Years in Business
Featuring Victor Huynh, Co-Founder and CEO of Ready Artwork | Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes
Business growth lessons often come from navigating challenges, adapting to change, and learning when to do things differently. For Victor Huynh, co-founder and CEO of Ready Artwork, 22 years of entrepreneurship have demonstrated that building a successful business requires continuous learning, leadership development, and the willingness to evolve.
In this episode of Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes, Victor shares how he and his co-founder, Emily Au, built a Los Angeles-based B2B digital marketing agency, navigated economic downturns, adapted to changing technology, and learned to lead through constant transformation.
His story offers an important perspective for business owners: sustainable growth is not always about getting bigger. Sometimes, building a better business requires changing how you operate.
From Freelance Design to Building a Business
Victor’s entrepreneurial journey began after graduating from Cal Poly Pomona, where he studied graphic design and art history.
Born in San Diego to immigrant parents and raised in Los Angeles, Victor began his professional career working in marketing within the furniture industry.
While working full time, he started accepting freelance design projects. As the workload increased, he reached out to former classmate Emily Au for help.
What began as occasional freelance work eventually became a business opportunity neither could ignore.
With clients returning and projects accumulating, Victor and Emily faced a decision familiar to many entrepreneurs: continue balancing traditional employment with a growing side business or take the risk of working for themselves.
Victor remembers their thinking:
“If we’re not going to take the leap now, when are we going to do it?”
They recognized that being young gave them an opportunity to experiment, make mistakes, and learn.
Twenty-two years later, their decision to launch Ready Artwork has become a story of continual reinvention.
These early business growth lessons shaped how Victor and Emily approached future challenges and opportunities.
Business Growth Lesson #1: Learning to Pivot Is Essential
Ready Artwork initially focused on graphic design, packaging, branding, and print materials.
At the time, print design was a profitable industry. However, technology and outsourcing gradually transformed the market.
Then the financial crisis struck.
Victor recalls business slowing dramatically, forcing the company to reconsider its services and identify new opportunities.
Rather than continuing to depend on an increasingly difficult market, Victor and Emily recognized a gap in website development.
Technology companies understood programming but often lacked strong design capabilities. Designers understood visual communication but did not always have the technical expertise necessary to build functional websites.
Ready Artwork positioned itself between those two disciplines.
The company continued evolving into search engine optimization, digital advertising, and eventually specialized marketing services for manufacturers, engineering firms, and industrial B2B companies.
Victor describes the company’s entire journey in one word:
“Pivoting.”
For business owners, this is an important reminder that the skills and services responsible for early success may not be the same ones required for long-term growth.
Learning and development must remain ongoing priorities, not activities reserved for onboarding new employees.
Business Growth Lesson #2: Developing Leaders Requires Letting Go
One of the most significant changes in Ready Artwork’s development happened when Victor and Emily recognized that they were duplicating each other’s work.
Both were trained graphic designers, and both initially contributed to creative projects.
Eventually, they realized that continuing to perform the same responsibilities limited their ability to grow the company.
Victor made the difficult decision to step away from the creative work he enjoyed and concentrate on sales, consulting, and client relationships.
Emily focused on creative production and strategy.
The division of responsibilities allowed each founder to develop different capabilities and contribute more effectively to the business.
Victor describes the problem with overlapping leadership responsibilities:
“If both partners are doing the same thing, you’re basically walking with your feet tied together.”
This is a valuable lesson in leadership development.
Business owners frequently build companies around their personal expertise. However, growing an organization requires learning when to delegate responsibilities, develop complementary leadership skills, and trust others to perform their roles.
One of Victor’s most important business growth lessons was recognizing that developing the company required changing his own responsibilities.
Leadership development is not simply about becoming better at what you already do. It also requires learning what you should stop doing.
For business owners looking to strengthen their leadership teams, Seeker Solution provides fractional executive leadership and Talent Development services designed to support organizational growth.
Business Growth Lesson #3: AI Is Changing What Employees Need to Learn
One of the most timely parts of the conversation focuses on artificial intelligence and its impact on digital marketing.
Victor has experienced several major technology transitions throughout his career, including the movement from early search engines such as Yahoo and AOL to Google.
Today, he sees another major shift taking place as customers increasingly use conversational AI tools to research products, services, and businesses.
For marketing agencies, this means adapting how businesses are discovered and how they communicate their expertise.
It also changes how work gets completed.
Tasks that agencies once outsourced can increasingly be performed using AI tools, creating opportunities to reduce repetitive work and redirect employees toward more valuable responsibilities.
Victor believes agencies must respond by becoming more strategic and human centered.
Rather than relying exclusively on technical execution, employees need to strengthen their abilities to think critically, understand customer needs, communicate effectively, and guide clients through complex decisions.
These business growth lessons demonstrate why continuous employee development matters as technology transforms entire industries.
As technology becomes more capable, employee development must focus on the capabilities that technology cannot fully replace.
Those capabilities include judgment, relationship building, leadership, and strategic thinking.
Victor emphasizes that human connection will remain an essential part of how his agency serves clients.
Business Growth Lesson #4: Business Owners Must Be Willing to Change Their Own Habits
Learning and development is not limited to employees.
Business owners must also be willing to challenge the habits and assumptions that shaped their leadership styles.
Victor shares a personal example involving remote work.
Both he and Emily prefer working in an office. However, changing workforce expectations required them to reconsider how their employees worked.
After experimenting with a hybrid arrangement, they found that managing different attendance expectations created unnecessary complexity.
Ultimately, Ready Artwork moved toward a remote work model while maintaining office space for employees who prefer working in person.
The adjustment was not easy for Victor.
As he explains:
“I’m so old school in the way I work, but I also have to force myself to be flexible.”
This experience illustrates a critical leadership principle.
Effective leaders do not have to personally prefer every organizational change. They do, however, need to recognize when their preferences may be limiting the business or its people.
Developing as a leader requires the willingness to question established practices and adjust when circumstances change.
These business growth lessons reinforce the importance of building organizations that can respond to changing workforce needs without sacrificing accountability or performance.
Business Growth Lesson #5: Human Connection Still Matters
As AI continues transforming how companies operate, Victor believes human relationships will become an increasingly important competitive advantage.
Technology can automate tasks, generate content, and process information quickly.
But clients still value being understood.
They want someone who can interpret information, explain complex decisions, and guide them toward meaningful outcomes.
This belief is reflected in Victor’s YouTube series, B2B Marketing. In Plain English, where he explains digital marketing developments without unnecessary technical jargon.
His approach reinforces an important distinction between information and understanding.
Providing information is not always the same as helping someone make a better decision.
For business owners developing their teams, this means technical training should be accompanied by communication skills, customer understanding, and relationship development.
The future of employee development is not just about teaching people how to use new technology. It is about teaching them how to use technology while delivering greater human value.
What It Takes to Be a Business Owner
At the end of every episode of Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes, we ask our guest the same question:
What do you believe it takes to be a business owner?
After 22 years of building Ready Artwork, Victor’s answer is direct:
“Pivoting and embracing change.”
He follows with an equally important observation:
“If you don’t change, you get left behind.”
His experience demonstrates that entrepreneurship requires more than developing a successful product, service, or business model.
It requires continuously evaluating what works, recognizing what no longer serves the organization, and having the willingness to change.
For business owners, the greatest learning and development investment may begin with their own ability to grow as leaders.
Final Takeaway: Build a Business That Can Keep Learning
Victor Huynh’s story is a reminder that building a successful business is not about finding one approach and repeating it indefinitely.
Ready Artwork has navigated economic disruption, evolving technology, changing customer expectations, shifting employee needs, and major transitions in how work gets completed.
Throughout those changes, the company has continued adapting.
Victor’s business growth lessons remind entrepreneurs that long-term success requires flexibility, intentional leadership, and a commitment to learning.
Because the goal is not simply to build a bigger business.
It is to build a business capable of becoming better as the world changes.
Business owners interested in strengthening their leadership structure, developing their teams, and preparing for growth can explore the fractional executive leadership solutions offered by Seeker Solution.
Listen to Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes
In this episode, “We Built It Bigger. Then We Built It Better,” Victor Huynh shares his experiences building Ready Artwork alongside co-founder Emily Au and explains how continual learning, adaptability, and human connection have shaped their business over more than two decades.
Listen to the full conversation on Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes for more insights into entrepreneurship, leadership development, and building a business that can evolve.
Connect with Victor Huynh:
Website: https://www.readyartwork.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/readyartwork/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ready-artwork/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/readyartwork
Personal Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victorhuynh_er/
About the Podcast
Business Owners Tell All: What It Takes features candid conversations with entrepreneurs about the decisions, challenges, lessons, and experiences behind building and leading a business.
Presented by Seeker Solution, the podcast explores what business ownership really requires, from leadership and operations to financial decisions, strategic growth, and talent development.
