THE LEVEL UP LETTER

Hi All!

Here is your weekly Level Up Letter. This week we're diving into a concept I recently heard on the My First Million podcast. "Optimizing for Chicken Slapping" (yes, really), and it comes from a conversation with PayPal co-founder Max Levchin about his company Slide. The idea is: be extremely careful what you choose to optimize, because you can endlessly perfect almost anything—even things that ultimately don't matter. ie: how many chicken slaps or super pokes people are sending on Facebook, from Mexico at 2pm on Tuesdays. Let’s dive in!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

THE SLAP TRAP

⁣"Chicken Slapping" comes from Slide, a company Max Levchin founded after PayPal. Slide became known for social media apps that let users do things like send virtual "slaps" to friends' profile pictures on social networks. The team got incredibly good at optimizing these interactions—perfecting the animations, improving conversion rates, testing different chicken-slapping approaches to maximize engagement.

Here's the problem: they were getting world-class at something that ultimately didn't matter much. The team could have been using that same optimization talent on more meaningful products or solving bigger problems.

This isn't just about Slide. We all fall into versions of this trap:

• The entrepreneur who spends months perfecting their logo instead of talking to customers

• The writer who endlessly tweaks their website rather than creating content

• The real estate investor who analyzes 100 deals but never makes an offer

The trap is especially dangerous because optimization feels like productive work. It creates the illusion of progress when you might just be perfecting something insignificant.

WHAT ARE YOU OPTIMIZING FOR?

In our coaching sessions, I often see people get caught in the details and lose sight of the bigger picture.

Ask yourself:

1. What am I currently spending most of my time optimizing?

2. If I became 10x better at it, would it fundamentally change my results?

3. Am I optimizing this because it's truly important, or because it's comfortable and gives me a sense of progress?

Sometimes the answer is uncomfortable. I’ve spent plenty of time optimizing distractions. Book ideas, perfecting a coaching program structure, and taking calls with different marketing agencies. When what I really needed to do was have more conversations with potential clients. I was optimizing the wrong thing.

So now ask yourself, what’s the most important thing you SHOULD be optimizing for?

SIGNS YOU'RE OPTIMIZING CHICKEN SLAPS

How do you know if you're caught in a chicken-slapping optimization trap? Look for these warning signs:

1. You're getting incrementally better at something without seeing proportionally better results

2. You've been working on essentially the same problem for months or years

3. The improvements you're making excite you more than your customers or audience

4. You're avoiding bigger, scarier strategic questions by diving into tactical optimizations

5. Deep down, you know you're avoiding something more important

If any of these apply to you, you might be mastering the art of chicken slapping.

THE ONE-WEEK EXPERIMENT

This week, try a simple but eye-opening exercise I call the "Optimization Audit." Here's how it works:

1. Track every task or project you work on this week (tweaking, refining, improving existing things)

2. For each task, ask: "If I got 10x better at this, would it fundamentally change my trajectory?"

3. Identify one optimization task you'll stop doing entirely

4. Identify one completely new area you'll explore instead

The goal isn't to stop all optimization—some things genuinely deserve refinement. The goal is to make sure you're not optimizing chicken slaps while ignoring the bigger opportunities in front of you.

What's one thing you've been endlessly optimizing that you should probably just let go of or call "good enough"?

READY TO LEVEL UP?

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