Bob Moesta - Learning to Build: The 5 Bedrock Skills of Innovators and Entrepreneurs

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I have always deeply enjoyed talking and listening to Bob Moesta. He makes you think about things, differently with a compelling logic. In Learning to Build, there is much that you will nod your head and agree with while smiling at how well it is described till youre hit with a left hook that you never saw coming.

In a very productive way, he knocked me out of my conventional view of things and gave me insights on how to be more systematic in creating entrepreneurs and innovators. I love this kind of systematic approach to improving our ability to innovate, and I highly recommend this to ALL entrepreneurs to help them know good habits from bad. Go ahead and take the red pillyou wont regret it.

Bill Aulet, Professor of Entrepreneurship at MIT Sloan School of Management, Managing Director of the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship, and author of Disciplined Entrepreneurship

New product innovation is the only real growth engine for a business since all of its existing offerings and capabilities are built into the current value. But innovation is often a very risky business and doesnt always turn out the way we expect it.

Innovation doesnt have to be a crapshoot. There are tools to make innovation more predictable and successful. In this book, Bob combines science and practice into a playbook on how to do innovation right and build products that customers will find useful and are willing to pay for. All of the five skills in this book are learnable and, together, are one of the best frameworks that I have seen for creating magical products. In particular, Bob masterfully explains the Uncovering Demand skill, which is probably the most critical part of an innovators journey. I wish I had known about these when I was in my twenties.

Moe Tanabian, Vice President at Microsoft AI

People believe innovation is some magic reserved for a select few companies and individuals. In reality, innovation is an ability that can be learned and mastered. Bob taught me many of the necessary skills over a decade ago, and through this book, he can teach you, too.

Jon Lax, Vice President of Design AR/VR at Facebook

Bob is one of the industrys masters. In Learning to Build, he distills years of experience into a practical guide toward building those skills essential to innovation. Its a must-read for entrepreneurs, business owners, and all those seeking to innovate in their lives and work.

Max Wessel, Executive Vice President and Chief Learning Officer at SAP

Through well-researched content, personal anecdotes, and reflection on his own experience as an innovator, Bob reveals the skills required for success. This book is vital for those who want to master innovation.

Terry Waters, CEO of Devada, Inc

Organized around five critical skillsand the valued mentors who influenced his thinkingLearning to Build is perfect for entrepreneurs, business owners, and anyone else hoping to acquire the skills necessary for innovation.

Todd Rose, Co-founder/President of Populace and author of Dark Horse and The End of Average

It is a great thing for the world that Bob the builder is increasingly Bob the teacher. There are many books on innovation methods and tools. While this unique book includes those, it is more about what he refers to as the stuff in between. Innovation methods and tools are like bricks in a foundationbut bricks dont work well without mortar in between them. Learning to Build provides mortar that firms and strengthens as you practice the five skills of an innovator in your life and work.

Jay Gerhart, Vice President of Innovation Engine at Atrium Health

Regardless of your profession, having a strong set of thinking tools is the difference between status quo and consistent progress. This book brings to life the critical skills of innovation that arent taught in school and are often drowned out in a sea of buzzwords. Through personal experience and reflection on the wisdom of his mentors, Bob offers advice on how you can put these skills into practice in your work.

Andy Weisbecker, Senior Director of Digital Experience at Target Corporation

I couldnt put this book down. The amount of practical learning per page is phenomenal. Bob takes his personal story and learnings to explain the foundation of what it takes to be a successful innovator like no one else hasand shatters several myths of the best ways to innovate in the process.

Michael Horn, author of Choosing College and Disrupting Class

Copyright 2022 Bob Moesta

All rights reserved.

Learning to Build

The 5 Bedrock Skills of Innovators and Entrepreneurs

To my mentors: Drs. Clayton Christensen, Genichi Taguchi, W. Edwards Deming, and Willie Hobbs Moore, who shared their knowledge with me so that I could pay it forward.

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By Des Traynor, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer, Intercom

Whats the next big opportunity? is the most common question you hear in businesses of all shapes and sizes. Ive heard it from fresh faced startup founders on day one and from tenured CEOs on day one thousand. I often try to reframe the question for them; the important question is How do we consistently find the next big opportunity, and thats a question I can only answer because of one man: Bob Moesta.

I still remember where I was when I finally found out who Bob was. I had spent weeks, potentially months, chasing down who was the mysterious character that connected all the dots between researching milkshakes, moving houses, and new methodologies Id never heard of.

Once I had his details, shared with me by a friend, I immediately emailed him. The startup world needed to hear about Bob Moesta, and more than that, I did. We had a successful startup, and our primary question was simply Where do we go from here? That proved to be a great question for someone like Bob.

We spoke for over two hours about innovation. He introduced me to new concepts like what it means to innovate on the demand side, why there are no sales professors, and how to identify struggling moments in customers lives, and he taught me to focus purely on the causal relationships in our business. In a data-rich world of endless, weak correlations and flakey A/B tests, Bobs voice was important, if isolated: talk to your users and look for the chain of events. He taught me to find innovations in the connected series of small clues drawn from deep customer interviews, not from simple seven-point surveys sent to thousands. Jeff Bezos recently remarked, When the anecdotes and the data disagree, the anecdotes are usually right. I suspect he would get along with Bob.

Bob is a builder, a successful one, and unlike many, he has an incredible ability to articulate his process. This is because Bob is a teacher, a successful one, and unlike many, he has built many successful businesses and advised hundreds more. This book will guide you through the important invariants in Bobs approach to building, and when youre finished, youll start seeing new opportunities everywhere in your business.

When you finally put this book down, youll no longer struggle to find areas to innovate in your business. Youll have a new and much better problem based on the wealth of opportunities you now see: where to start?