Jason Levinthal on LINE Skis, Full Tilt Boots and Building J Skis

First things first: J is the man. His skis are awesome. If he ever lets us buy some to sell in our stores, we will. Jason, the ball is in your court.

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Jason Levinthal has had his fingerprints all over modern skiing for more than 30 years.

He started LINE in 1995, building his first twin-tip ski as a college project. He later sold LINE to K2, helped launch Full Tilt using the original Raichle Flexon molds, and eventually left K2 to start J Skis in 2013.

George from The Ski Monster sat down with Jason to get the stories behind all three.

How Full Tilt Actually Started

After K2 acquired LINE around 2006, Jason traveled to K2's headquarters on Vashon Island. During one of his first meetings, K2 president Robert Marcovich and the team pulled out an old Raichle Flexon boot.

K2 had acquired the original molds and still owned the Full Tilt trademark from a former wakeboard brand. The idea was to bring the Flexon back under the Full Tilt name, learn the ski-boot business and eventually use that experience to launch K2 ski boots.

They asked Jason to run it.

There was just one catch: he basically had no budget. Pasted text

That constraint became part of what made Full Tilt work.

Instead of reinventing the boot, Jason leaned into what already made the three-piece design different. Skiers had been loyal to the Flexon for decades, and the boot had credibility ranging from mogul skiing to World Cup racing. Jason saw the same characteristics translating naturally to the rapidly growing freestyle scene. Pasted text

The challenge wasn't necessarily making the boot perform better.

It was making a decades-old boot look relevant again.

Jason took inspiration from things like Nike Dunks and Anon goggles and started treating Full Tilt boots almost like sneakers. Pro models, wild graphics, different materials, collaborations and limited-edition designs transformed the perception of the old Flexon without abandoning what made the boot work in the first place. Pasted text

Seth Morrison became a major part of that story. When Jason visited him, Seth already had a basement full of new-in-box Flexons because he didn't want to run out of the boot he preferred. That authenticity became the foundation for one of Full Tilt's most important pro models. 

Before Full Tilt, There Was LINE

Jason started LINE in 1995.

His first twin-tip was a college project built using material from an old ski, snowboard base and topsheet material, fiberglass, epoxy and a homemade car-jack press.

The idea was simple: make something that allowed him to ski backward, slide rails and approach skiing more like snowboarding.

At the time, snowboarding was exploding while skiing was struggling to connect with younger riders. Skiboards eventually made it into the X Games, LINE gained attention, and the ideas that started in Jason's garage became part of a much larger change in skiing.

One of the skis Jason is most proud of is the LINE Prophet. To him, it represented a point when mainstream skiing finally started taking what LINE was doing seriously. 

Starting Over With J Skis

After years of running LINE and then working inside K2, Jason started J Skis in 2013.

By then, the world had changed.

Ecommerce was becoming accessible to small companies. Shopify made it possible to build a store without massive development costs. Social media provided a direct connection to customers. And Jason found a small factory in Quebec willing to manufacture skis in extremely small quantities. 

That last piece made the J Skis model possible.

Rather than trying to compete with massive manufacturers on volume and price, J could produce limited quantities, collaborate with artists, create scarcity and sell directly to skiers.

Jason also changed the traditional ski-industry calendar. Instead of waiting for winter, J launches skis beginning around August 1 and uses limited releases throughout the year to keep people engaged.

As Jason explains in the conversation, that strategy wasn't created because it sounded cool. It was survival.

A small ski company couldn't play the same game as K2 or Atomic. J needed a business model built specifically around being small. 

The Ski Business Keeps Changing

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation is that Jason still doesn't talk like someone who has figured everything out.

The things that made J different in 2013 — ecommerce, limited releases, collaborations, digital marketing — are now everywhere. Costs have risen. Shipping has gotten dramatically more expensive. And standing apart as a small brand is getting harder again.

So Jason is doing what he's done throughout his career: changing the model again.

He even talks about potentially expanding J Skis back into select brick-and-mortar retailers because physical stores create something ecommerce can't: discovery and an in-person experience. 

That might be the common thread through the entire conversation.

LINE didn't win by acting like the established ski companies.

Full Tilt didn't win by making its old boot look like every other ski boot.

J Skis didn't survive by following the traditional wholesale model.

Jason has spent his career figuring out where the ski industry is going — and finding a way to get there differently.

Watch the full conversation between Jason Levinthal and George Michaelsen of The Ski Monster above.