First to Hit the Brick Wall
In innovation, speed is the biggest determinant of success because you learn what doesn't work before anyone else.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
For markets where you are building experiences that don't exist yet, Parmar argues speed beats caution. The goal is to be the first to 'hit the brick wall' — to discover faster than anyone else that your current path is wrong, so you can course-correct (10 degrees west, 30 degrees east) while staying one to three steps ahead of the pack. It is a deliberate counter to the 'go slow to go fast' orthodoxy, scoped specifically to novel/uncertain work.
Origin
Varun Parmar's personal product philosophy. He references Frank Slootman's book 'Amp It Up' on creating urgency as a related inspiration.
Core principles
- 01When you're paving new ground, no one can tell you the right path — so the fastest learner wins.
- 02The value of speed is not raw output; it's reaching the wrong-turn discovery sooner.
- 03Being one, two, or three steps ahead on insight compounds into a durable lead.
- 04'Go slow to go fast' has its place, but not for genuinely new experiences with unknown resonance.
How to run it
- 1
Classify the work as novel or known
Reserve the brick-wall approach for zero-to-one experiences where you don't yet know if the concept will resonate. Apply caution only to areas where correctness genuinely matters up front.
Watch out Don't apply maximum speed to high-stakes, well-understood areas (e.g. security, infra correctness) where 'go slow to go fast' is right.
- 2
Race to the learning, not the polish
Sequence work to reach the point of validation or invalidation as fast as possible — build the smallest thing that reveals whether the path is wrong.
Pro tip Frame success as 'who learns the path is wrong first,' not 'who ships most.'
- 3
Course-correct on the new bearing
When you hit the wall, immediately adjust heading — a few degrees one way or the other — rather than continuing down a validated-wrong path.
- 4
Stay a few steps ahead
Use the earlier insight to keep a one-to-three-step lead on competitors in uncovering what works, converting speed of learning into product and business advantage.
In the wild
Miro's zero-to-one product teams run Jake Knapp's five-day design sprint to quickly mock up a concept, turn it into a prototype, and get validation before committing — a concrete mechanism for reaching the wall fast on new experiences like Miro Talk Track.
→ New concepts get a fast sound/not-sound verdict in a five-day window instead of months of blind building.
Common mistakes
Applying 'go slow to go fast' everywhere
Blanket caution kills the learning advantage in novel work; the slow-and-mindful posture should be reserved for areas where correctness is known and high-stakes, not for uncertain new experiences.
Confusing speed with throughput
Teams equate moving fast with shipping more features. The real objective is discovering the wrong turn sooner, so racing to produce polish without racing to learn misses the point.
Is it for you?
Best for
Innovation-centric teams building genuinely new experiences in competitive markets where the right path is unknown.
Not ideal for
Regulated, safety-critical, or well-understood domains where a wrong first move is costly and correctness is knowable up front.
From the transcript
“what you want to do is that you want to be the first one to hit the brick wall”
“can you be the first one to hit the brick wall where you have to see where you have the learning faster than anyone else…”
“I think as long as you're like one or two or three steps ahead of everyone else in terms of uncovering or you know discovering…”
From the episode
An inside look at how Miro builds product: Lessons on outmaneuvering competitors, team structure, product quality, and moving fast
Varun Parmar (CPO of Miro)