Jason Levinthal / J Skis
Jason “J” Levinthal started making skis in his parents’ garage at the age of 24. After founding a company, seeing it acquired, and realizing he wasn’t built to sit still, he launched J Skis, a direct-to-skier brand creating hand-crafted, limited-edition skis. With a background in brand marketing, J’s goal is to turn heads on the mountain and beyond, from brand partnerships to collaborations with musicians. He’s been through nearly every lesson that shapes a founder. Tune in, clip in, strap in. No matter how you ride, lock in.
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Transcript
Nicole Eaton
Today we sit down with Jay Leventhal, founder of J skis, a handcrafted ski company selling directly to the skier. Welcome to start here, Jay.
Jay Leventhal
Thanks for having me. Really, really excited to have you.
Nicole Eaton
Jay skis is across the street now, which we’re so excited about. We are one of your guys’s biggest fans. So you throw the best parties.
David Bradbury
And that’s from snowboarders who love what you do.
Jay Leventhal
Well I’m a snowboarder. I’m an OG snowboarder. Since back in the 90s.
David Bradbury
I’m starting to feel like an OG snowboarder myself but like, all right, let’s jump in just, just help us set the stage here. What makes J skis different?
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, there’s a few things.
[Jay looks at camera]
Would I be talking to this camera, or what?
Nicole Eaton
Whatever you want.
Jay Leventhal
Okay, so, so my ski company is quite a bit different, and one all of our skis are limited edition, so you’re gonna see 100 of these. For example, made. I’ll do one graphic, like this graphic right here. There was, if there was 100 of those, that’s it, that’s all. And we’ll do the same model. Maybe it’s 200 of a totally different graphic. So you’re one of only 100 people in the world to own that ski, each ski, wow. I also hand sign a number, so it’s like a work of art. So you have, you not only have a unique ski, but like, unique to you.
And then the graphics are off, off the charts, like we work with, we collaborate. All the skis are collaborations with artists from around the world, brands, you know, just whoever we want to work with and that they really take over the canvas of the ski. It’s always been seen. I’ve always seen it as a canvas, just esthetically, like there’s so much that can be done on skis, like you’ve seen on skateboards, but previous years hadn’t been.
And we also sell exclusively direct to consumer. So we’re selling it directly through our website, which isn’t a big deal, ecom, of course, now, but when I started in 2013 there was no one selling fees online. It was 100% to through retail as a manufacturer. But yeah, we, we, we have customer service. 24/7, live chat like we’re seven days a week, 12 hours a day. We’re there to talk to our customers and one on one, and it was just a big mission of mine to kind of get out of the traditional way of doing business in the ski industry.
David Bradbury
Can I ask a question? It’s our show. Of course, we’re gonna ask questions. What am I buying? Like? Am I buying the performance of the hardware? I’ll call it the ski, right? Or is it just a graphic?
Jay Leventhal
No, right. So the thing is, if you’re going to sell a product, the product itself has to perform, like, you can’t just slap something cool on it or good marketing and expect it to go anywhere long term. So the performance of the ski I’ve been in the ski industry for 30 years, like, I’ve started multiple businesses in the ski industry and ski brands and worked at different engineers and factories and everything, and these are my best skis yet.
So like, the performance is there, I have super fans that I’ve had for 30 years, literally coming back, or some people just discovered me last year, and they’re coming back. People own four or five pair. That’s not, believe it or not, that crazy, because they’re just fans of the way the ski feel. So our skis are just easier to more playful. We’re not coming from a European traditional racing kind of influence. We’re coming from an American I go out ski and have fun, simple as that, yeah, like that, that whole direction. And so people have a lot more fun on the skis. They find them easier to ski on. They’re high performance, but you can also be a beginner and enjoy them.
Nicole Eaton
Wow, yeah, that’s helpful.
David Bradbury
That’s my sales pitch. It wasn’t very interested, yeah? Like, you did a collab with Eric Gable, the surf artist, yeah, which I’m a big… Yeah, no, that was so dope. I was like, Oh, that’d be cool on my wall, right?
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, people do hang them up, you know, and we sell display so, like, when you’re not using them, you put them on the long living room or whatever.
Nicole Eaton
Oh, I love that. Um, so tell us about your background. You said you’re originally a snowboarder, which I love. But, I mean, I’ve also heard your story before. Yeah, great pitch at the hardware meetup, people are still talking about it, but yeah, tell us your background. I mean, the story of who you are, and also Jay skis, yeah.
Jay Leventhal
Well, I mean, I’ve been, I started skiing in middle school, and as soon as I got on, I told my mom, I’m like, This is what I want to do. And she’s like, well, skiing isn’t really like a job or a career. But anyway. I just love skiing so much when snowboarding came about, this is in like the 90s, snowboarding really kicked skiing ass. Like skiing was so traditional, so conservative, it hadn’t changed in decades. And snowboarding came out of left field with going being able to snowboard backwards, do tricks, do all the things that you can do on skateboard or wake board or BMX bike. It was had so much more unlimited possibilities. It inspired people so much more than skiing was at the time.
So I was a skier, and I as a kid, thinking, Okay, I gotta start snowboarding. Now. This is a 90s. I’m following Jake Burton. I’m like, following the whole scene, and the magazines, the videos are coming out, like, you know, I’m trying to emulate, like the pros, like I was doing with skiing. So I started snowboarding, and then still skied, you know, but my friends were all moving over to snowboarding. I still love skiing best, but there was just so much more I could do on my snowboard.
So as a college Project at the University of Buffalo, I went for design, like, no engineering, no math. Like I wouldn’t have passed if I had to read big books. So it was like graphics and making things. Like, there was literally a wood shop to make stuff, and then you could do graphics, like Photoshop and stuff. So it was just about being creative.
As a senior project, I decided to make a ski that was like a snowboard. So I just basically said, I want the ski to be twin tip, like a snowboard, to have side cut, have be wider. And I made them really short. I should have brought one. That’s ridiculous. They’re they’re 99 centimeters. So it’s like half the length of a normal ski, twice as wide as a normal ski. I made it basically took a snowboard in half the width, half the length, but same exact shape, and I went riding on it. It was like the mountain was closed. I hiked up my friends, and I was able to, like, slide a rail go backwards, like, do things you could do on, like rollerblades, for instance, and things like snowboard spin around real easily, land backwards. I mean, that first day I was like, Holy shit, like fun in the skiing, right? Yeah. I mean, and that was just, like a first… I was the shittiest ski I ever made, you know? I mean, the first one. So that, that was, that was the kickoff, is, like one of the first twin tip skis in the modern era. Wow, yeah. And that’s when I started the company line. I moved home after college graduating and moved in with my parents, and then in my their one car garage, I started making these little twin tip skis.
David Bradbury
Yeah, so literally, you’ve been in this business for for 30 years.
Jay Leventhal
Yes, wow.
Nicole Eaton
I remember hearing that you got an order from someone for like, 1000 of these, and it was basically just you.
David Bradbury
Wait, he made his own order. Was it like, height?
Jay Leventhal
I just about had to, because no one gave a shit about what I had. You know, is this, like I went, I basically I spent an entire year make trying to make these things. I’d like, make one, go on the hill, see how it rode, went back home, make another. Take me, like, a day or two to make one. And then I would just evolve it to try to make it better and better. And then by spring in, you know, like I was like, I have to sell these, and the only way to sell them is through retailers.
So I went to a trade show in Las Vegas, bought my uncle’s flyer miles, like spent every last dollar to get out there. And I was in this little 10 by 10 booth. Now, snowboarding was blowing up at the time. It was like hundreds of snowboard brands, like everybody in their garage.
David Bradbury
200 snowboard brands back then at the sih, yeah, yeah.
Jay Leventhal
So in Vegas is, like, ski industries of America, and that’s where you go to sell product, because the stores go there. They look at your product, they place an order. You build it all summer and ship it in the fall. So that was my chance. I had friends that made snowboards. They did that. They got orders. I went there. I mean, there was huge booths from, like, big ski snowboard companies. I had this little 10 by 10, and it was just me and my friend who made this binding, the Alpine binding for it.
And anyway, we might have talked to like, three or four people. And, you know, it was just one of those things where they walked by and they did and then they keep walking. Yeah, so I went home after that, and, you know, I didn’t get any orders, okay, and I might have talked to, like, a handful of people, and they’re probably just being polite.
And then I went home a couple weeks later, I was like, holy shit. Like, what am I doing? You know, like, I’m just wasting my time. Like, I just spent a year living and breathing every moment to make this ski. And thought I was going to get somewhere, because I see Jake Burton doing Burton, and I see like Sims, and I see all these startups doing it. I thought, hey, I did it. Why didn’t it work?
So I ended up getting a phone call from like the local copy store. And and they said, Hey, we have a fax for you. So a fax is for anyone watching. It’s a piece of paper. It’s an email printed on paper. It wasn’t an email. So I drive to the store, like the UPS store, basically, I read the paper, and it’s an order from Japan, a Japanese distributor for 1000 pair of these.
So, as you know, like, think about it, it takes me a full day to make one. They don’t want to wait three years for me to deliver this. So that was that problem. You could see it as a problem, because I didn’t know, how am I going to make 1000 pair? Yeah, it was a huge opportunity. I mean, now someone actually wants these create this crazy product I made, like I actually have someone that wants to buy it from me. Boom, I can be in business. All I got to do is make the damn thing.
So I moved all my stuff out of the garage. Went to basically rent a bigger garage in town. This is Albany, New York. Hired some friends from high school, and we just made these skis. I made equipment to make the ski. I made the machines to make them the skis, and figured it out and trial and error. And by the end of the summer, we shipped out, somehow, 1000 skis. Wow.
And the money part was the crazy shit, because it costs a lot to buy all the materials. I had to buy the wood core, the plastic, the edges. I had to figure out, like, where to how to get all that. And the bank somehow trusted me. I do not know what they were thinking. I went there with my purchase order from Japan. I was like, I got an order for 1000 I don’t know how much money it actually was, but they let me borrow half. It was an export working capital loan. They caught. I never forget that.
David Bradbury
He probably couldn’t have done it. If it was a shop in Utah,
Jay Leventhal
probably couldn’t it. Like, fell into a certain category where that was the bank’s job. The government was like, hey, banks, you got to get these people exporting, you know, wow. I didn’t know about it, but they’re like, yes, we can do this. I was and I didn’t know anything. I was like, oh, okay, good. Just like, I didn’t know how unique that was, you know, I mean, if I had to get an investor, they would have said, you’ve never made more than five of these things. Like, why would I believe you can do it? Yeah?
But I mean, I literally from morning, like seven in the morning till midnight, like every day I was just in that garage. Like, no one. I didn’t show up to anything. I didn’t go out my friends, I didn’t go to my parents house, like they had to come see me, and if they ever visited, they were put right to work. It was like my dad was making boxes. I was just like, you know, it was just, it had to be that way. It was just a hustle.
David Bradbury
So that phase in was sort of the traditional model, right? You go to the big shows, you sell the retailers who come to you, and then you know that’s had ups and downs throughout, like, when did you make the change to direct to consumer and Do you regret sort of leaving the retailers behind?
Jay Leventhal
Hey, I love the ski shots. That’s one thing. I’ll just set it straight right now. I love ski shops. You can’t you couldn’t do the same thing without them.
But for my business after, you know, from that date till 15 years later, I learned a lot of lessons. And the biggest takeaway is that model only works when you have volume like you need to be building like 30,000 skis I was building 3000 you don’t make enough profit having all the middlemen like the sales rep, the trade show, the distributor, then the retailer, then finally the consumer. I’m left with not enough money to operate, and I almost went bankrupt twice, until I ended up selling that business. That was the line brand that I started, and that eventually got sold to k2 because I couldn’t support it financially in that business model.
So it was really there was no choice before E comm to operate a small business economically in that way when you’re doing a few 1000 pieces. So that’s what drove me to when I was working for k2 and I learned a lot doing that. I was like, I think I could do it again. Now, because of social media and YouTube and E COMM And Shopify website, everything became turnkey. I’m like, What am I doing? I could actually go try this again.
I mean, we’re talking, I started in 95 I got investors, I sold the business. I worked for k2 the public company running line, and it was in 2013 that I finally said, I think I could pull this off, or I want to at least try, you know. And I was turning 40, and I was like, if I don’t do it, now, when am I going to do it? And I just left k2 and I said, Hey, I’m starting a ski company. I remember telling them, they’re like, I remember telling him was selling online, sell skis online, and they’re like, There’s no way that’s gonna work. Like, you’ll never be, yeah, you’ll never be able to sell enough. You know what I mean?
When I’m looking around, I go, there’s shoes. Like, people are buying everything online, yeah? So that’s you know? But this is 2013 you know?
David Bradbury
Yeah. Do you think you could have made that transition without the street cred you had before, with line sort of like, if you were just some unknown random coming up, say, Here’s my my ski. Like, are people? They need to see that heritage and proof point?
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, it helps. And that was a big factor. Was like, I decided I had to use leverage everything I had, and part of what I had was my credibility, and so like, I could have hid behind the brand and that I would have been way more comfortable and eat less. Work for me right now, it’s hard to be, like, the face of a brand, especially in this day and age, like, like, I’m doing this right? Like, here I am. But yeah, I could have anyone doing this if I wasn’t, this is work for you know, hey, I’m not. I’m not skiing right now, right?
Yeah, so the fact is, like, I was like, I have to leverage my credibility. Of all those years, every person I sold a ski to is going to help me, because they’re going to trust me and they’ll jump over to me and buy it online. I don’t do demos. I don’t have it in shops. No one can see the product or try the product before buying it.
Now, that’s a crazy thing. It’s a flex, yeah, but, but the thing is, it actually works in a different way to an advantage, because when someone owns one of my skis, and there’s someone else, they bring it into a ski shop. All the shop employees like, whoa, wait. Is that the Bob Ross J ski? Is that this is that I got to see this? And they gather, and it makes that customer feel so special. And when they’re in the lift line and they see another ski, and it’s rare to be the same ski, but they just recognize it. They’re like, Oh, that’s a J ski. It’s kind of like a silent you know?
David Bradbury
Well, Emma was stoked to go, like, to her trunk and say, Oh, I have Jace keys in the car. Do you guys want it for this?
Jay Leventhal
It’s a secret handshake. I mean, it’s like the Harley guys, you know, like waving to each other, yeah, or the ducks on the Jeep, you know.
So it’s, it worked out in that way, but no, at the time, it was a risk and but I could look at the numbers if you want to get into the math, which I wasn’t great at. But like, this is basic math. If you’re gonna sell a ski, let’s say for if it was $600 just an easy number, and you were going to a store is gonna buy it from you for 300 so like, if it cost me 200 to make, which it did, I only get $100 out of a $600 retail product. The store made $300.03 times as much as me, the guy who made it. Now, when I sell direct, I get the stores 300 plus my 100. Now I’m making 400 that’s four times the profit.
I don’t drive a Lamborghini. But the fact is, I can build fewer products, and I don’t need the vine. So that’s the whole thing that makes it work. So you could, at one point it was 3000 pair. Was like the break even. Now it’s getting closer to 4000 everything’s going up, yeah, but that’s a tiny amount of skis compared to the big companies are selling hundreds of 1000s, right? So that’s where the D to C is key, and that’s why I say. I have nothing against the retailers. I just can’t financially support myself doing so.
David Bradbury
No retailers carry your skis?
Jay Leventhal
You have a couple of them, a couple of them buy it at a discount on their credit card, which, again, so, so you’re not giving them industry terms, the terms, right? Because, because traditionally you’d give them, like, six months to pay you. It’s like, I can’t be a bank to another small business. Like, I’m a small business, right? Yeah. So that was part of it, too. That was China.
And the amount of time I got to go drive around, shake all those hands, get everyone on the skis. Now, instead, we say, Hey, if you don’t like our skis, after five days of using them, return them. We’ll refund your no problem. Yeah, you know. And that first five days could be two years from now. Like, we just make it so it’s, it’s a no brainer. Like, if you don’t like them, you send them back. It’s no big deal.
David Bradbury
Do you get many back?
Jay Leventhal
No, we don’t get that many. But the few that we do, we have in our shop and we resell it.
David Bradbury
They are just peace of mind.
Jay Leventhal
It does, yeah, and sometimes they are the wrong size or wrong model, and they just don’t like and that’s fine, you know, we’re not making a ski for every human on Earth. You know, we’re fine with that, right?
Nicole Eaton
Yeah. So you obviously started selling online, selling DTC, and now you have a storefront, like, fully with a bar, with, like, basically a game room, an event space. How has that helped with not only your business, but just the community? I feel like it’s such a cool spot to hang out.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, it hasn’t helped with my stress. It’s or financial situation. Having a physical business, a physical location, is gnarly. I never had one, and don’t get me wrong, I’m glad I did it, but it was 10 times 100 times more work than I ever imagined.
I mean, ecom, I’ve got four people selling 4000 skis on my econ business, and developing the skis, creating all the marketing. We have three people working there to sell one or two a day. You know what I mean? It’s crazy. But the what you’re what you’re pointing out is, and why we did it was because we wanted a point of contact, and we people would. Say, Hey, I’m visiting town. Can I come see you? And I say, No, you know, we’re just few people on laptops in different states. Now I can say, Yes, come on down.
And if I had just a store, it would be like, yeah, walk into if you’re going to buy a ski. That’s how it would feel. Now we have the bar, the lounge. We have like, memorabilia on the wall, the history of skiing and snowboarding games. So, you know, you’ve got, like, a four year old sitting at the bar having a hot chocolate. They’re watching their parents are having a drink. You know, you’re watching ski movies. We have events, birthday parties, company get togethers, holiday parties there. And it becomes a community space.
And that’s what I was trying to do, is give back to the community, ski and snowboard community, especially in this town. You got four colleges. You know, over 100,000 students are coming here to ski and snowboard. You’ve got, I think, five, six mountains within an hour of here. And there is not one place in this town that has the theme of skiing and snowboarding to hang out at, you know, they talk about the third place like, you know, a place you work your home. What’s that third place?
Currently, third places are, like a coffee shop that’s about coffee, and then there’s a bar about partying, and we wanted to be, you know, just a casual kind of environment, not a restaurant where, like, you have to go in and buy something, you can just go in and hang out, you know, yeah, just watch ski movies, or we do whatever, yeah,
David Bradbury
we do that. Like we love it, right? Like, we’ve had four or five parties there through the years, right?
Nicole Eaton
Or even just a Friday afternoon. We’re like, let’s go to Jay skis,
David Bradbury
I know, like, oh yeah, having a having a beer out in the sidewalk when the sun is hitting you, right there. It’s pretty good look. I totally got Sam Roach-Gerber, and I totally got busted by Senator Peter Welch walking down the sidewalk out there. Man, it was like a Tuesday afternoon, the spring sun.
We got liquor license. It wasn’t… it was your little courtyard. Love it.
So, lessons learned, right? What you know now versus what you wish you’d known back then, any sort of things that for the next aspiring entrepreneur, not necessarily ski specific, that you’re like shit, this would have made my life a lot easier, or, or I could have lost less money in the early days, or stress like, yeah, no.
Jay Leventhal
I mean, I can…
David Bradbury
run I get tissues over here somewhere.
Jay Leventhal
Do I need? Do I need a tissue, you know, if you start crying? Okay, okay. Do I have anything on my nose?
Okay, so here’s the deal I got. I could give you 100 lessons. So the, I mean, the first one is, you got to make a spreadsheet and so that you know what is going on, like what you’re selling and what your costs are, and it you don’t have to be an accountant or any of that stuff. I’m not, I’m talking. It’s basically plusing and minusing. Thing like you, plus you have a positive sale for $1,000 and you have a cost for 200 the basic unit, super basic. And just the first thing that people come to me and they say, like, What? What? Which? What about this? What about that? I go put it down on paper and see, you know, put it on a spreadsheet and see.
That’s one thing. I wish I did more in the early days. In the early days, I did not realize what I was spending and what I was making. I just thought, hey, we’re in magazines, like we got pros in the X Games, like we’re crushing it. People are patting us on the back. They’re stoked, like we’re doing great. I didn’t think about like, is the amount of money I’m making more or less than the amount I’m spending?
And eventually I ended up in debt, like hundreds of 1000s of dollars, in debt. I’m 24 years old, and borrow my parents pickup truck, and I owe the banks, and I have four or five credit cards I’m rotating, and that’s that that destroyed me financially without knowing it, yeah. So that that’s one lesson. I think if I had stopped and really looked at it and said, Well, what? How can I fix this? That I would have kept the company longer, and I could have turned it around, but my thinking at the time was shit, I need help, and ended up selling it to… not making real money, but kind of like moving my job with getting a partner. And it was, it was a good lesson learned.
The other lesson is you don’t have to make something. Like, it’s fun to make something. It’s cool to make something. You can make a prototype. You also don’t have to, especially in this day and age, like everyone in the world can make something for you, and if they’re specialist in making it, they’re going to be better at it, faster at it, more efficient, more cost effective.
I was burning money, I’m sure, making my own skis. I mean, we got up to 4000 skis at that, at my little oversized garage, which is me and my friends. Like, there’s no way we are the most efficient factory. You know what I mean? We are buying raw materials for probably so much more. And I remember telling Elon, big ski company in Europe, they’re like, Hey, we can make these for you. They gave me a price. I laughed at it. I don’t think I realized what my price really was. With all my labor, all my overhead, if you have someone else make it, then I could have focused on the sales and marketing even more.
You know, no, I today don’t touch any product. There’s I don’t need packaging tape. I don’t touch a cardboard box. I don’t touch the skis. The skis get made at someone else’s factory to my specs, and they get shipped to a fulfillment center, and they ship it out so the less you touch that you aren’t the best at, the better. Like, just do whatever you’re best at. So I’m best at marketing and selling, so that’s what I’m focused on. And don’t get me wrong, you don’t need it. I need an engineer, right? I need to engineer your skis, but you don’t need a full time engineer. So like, I pay an engineer when we need them, I pay an accountant as we need them, a web developer when we need them. So that’s how you get lean. That’s how you get efficient, cost effective. So those are the things that I kind of wish… those are two big ones, right? Okay, yeah, I got, I got a million. But, yeah, that’s what, that’s what back in the day might have saved me from having to kind of let go of the business and sell it. Yeah?
David Bradbury
So what’s a recent learning?
Jay Leventhal
A recent learning is that you can’t compete. I can’t compete as a small company discounting like last year. Coming out of covid, there was an overproduction of skis and the whole Outdoor Industry during covid, because it was in a boom, actually, and after covid, everyone had already bought skis. Now they had other things to do with their money, and they weren’t buying as many skis. And there’s so much now on the market. By the time they built it, it was a surplus.
So now every one of my competitors, who normally I don’t really compete with, we’re just doing our own thing, selling our own thing. Suddenly I’m getting emails from every brand. Hey, 40% off, 60% off. I’m like, I’m not selling shit. I mean, why would someone buy mine? Even if they love it, they’re only run… there are people buying it, but I had like, 30% of my inventory I just could not sell to save my life. So I was like, I have to discount, just like they are.
So now I start discounting, and at the end of the year, I lost money for the first time in like 12 years since I started up. And I mean, I lost hundreds of 1000s of dollars. And I was just shocked, like, I was like, this happened so fast, because my whole season, 75% of my season, is from August to December. It’s basically q4 and it’s over. And so it’s not even like, you have a long 12 month lead time where you’re like, you know what? I see this. I’m going to correct it. I’m going to fix it.
I had the people I had, I had the product I had. Within weeks, I had to make a decision, am I going to sit on this inventory? Basically everybody else is doing, have hundreds of 1000s of dollars of skis… like this thing is not $1 bill. I can’t buy anything with a ski sitting on the shelf for the next two years. Or am I going to turn it into cash, but do it at a price where I make no money, no profit? It’s the same as like not having a business, as if I didn’t sell anything because it’s so priced so low, yeah.
So I did what I had to do, and coming out of that go, I can’t let this… can’t happen again. So the next year, the lesson I learned is I built less, so 20% less skis this past season, and I didn’t discount. I kept my prices. I actually raised my prices 60 bucks. I added $20 shipping. No one complained about shipping. This is a freaking lesson to learn here. I was so worried that no one was gonna buy my freaking $800 skis because of a shipping cost, I put $20. We had one person commented, out of 4000 skis, they said, “I can’t believe it only costs $20 to ship a ski,” because it’s true, it cost us like 80 bucks to ship a ski, but I’m only charging you 20.
Yeah, so much has changed in the last four years where, like, shipping was something that you passed on. The exact amount to shipping costs went so high that there is no such… you would never buy it if I told you what it was. So I’m only gonna, I’m only gonna charge you a little bit of it so no one complains. So now I’m making 60 to $80 more, and I’m not discounting it. And this year we are profitable.
And don’t get me wrong, I cut costs.
David Bradbury
You kept it in 100 100 skis, 100 graphics…
Jay Leventhal
…per per graphic. It was like 200 to 300 depending on the graphic. But, but the fact I also cut a lot of costs. I had to lay people off. I had to scale down, like we scaled up, and I didn’t scale down quick enough. That was the mistake, and figuring out how the hell…
David Bradbury
they do sharing that. It’s like, really, really important, right? It’s surreal. A lot of growth is awesome, until it’s not because you’re focused on other things, yeah.
Nicole Eaton
Yeah, especially with the the pandemic and the uncertainty of it, you’re like, Okay, I guess we’re following this. And then…
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, you think it’s forever, and everyone does. And thing is, I remember a friend told me, I’d never heard this, they go, if you’re in business for 10 years, you’re going to experience the ups and the downs. And I just had cycles, yeah, the cycle and…
David Bradbury
just skis. That did it like bicycles, right? Two years ago, whenever three years ago is great time. Everybody you couldn’t get a bicycle. Everybody over supplied, and then you can get them for 40% off.
Jay Leventhal
It was, it was across the board on everything. So that was with that was wicked man, and it was, and don’t get me wrong, it’s, it’s been tough, like to scale down stuff. Like, I’m not… I got the building, like, we took out a mortgage for the building where it’s an investment. Now I… it’s not something you snap your fingers and get rid.
We had to figure out how to, how to make that more profitable, how to make the business more efficient, like, like, get rid of the agency that we had that was, you know, five grand a month to run our Facebook ads. Cut down our Facebook ads, like, everything. Just had to contract. Yeah, and that goes back to the plus and minus on a simple sheet of like, what are you selling and what you have to… you can either raise your price or you can cut your costs. There’s only two ways to get to that spot.
Nicole Eaton
And often it’s both.
Jay Leventhal
Like, yeah. Do both. Yeah, thank you for sharing that. I want to talk a bit about your brand and how you keep things fresh. Yeah. So, like, I know you obviously have partners, and you have artists like make new designs, and you yourself, like our designer and marketer, you say, but yeah, how do you keep the brand fresh with just like a pair of skis?
Jay Leventhal
Sure, we I just don’t sit still like I, you know, I get bored easily. So we’re always looking for whatever is wild the next thing and everything doesn’t have to be a game changer or, like an eye catcher, but, like, you definitely need it throughout the year in some capacity, yeah, to keep it fresh, so that someone says, “Oh, no way did you see what they did with whatever?”
You know, we’ll collab with a brand or an artist or a musician or something like that. So we just make sure we have that sprinkled in along the way, and know that, like, so what are we doing that is going to accomplish that for us? Like, it’s an actual, it’s an actual thing on our on our goals. Like each… like, we could just, we can make 4000 skis, and they can be whatever, but we know that we got to work with another brand or do something that turns heads right a certain amount, like maybe 20% of what we do has to turn heads. Yeah, not been done before, yeah? Or try…
Nicole Eaton
to do that, yeah? I mean, I remember even going in the shop at our holiday party, and I just heard people be like, “No way. That’s like a Watson ski.” You’re like, “Oh, this is this.” And it’s just, it’s crazy how that is a talking point of like, “Oh, that’s sick.”
David Bradbury
So I mean, I get the same thrill as I when I walk in the Burton headquarter store, right, which is like, Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory experience. And you get the same just the energy, the creativity and it’s the irreverence and the fun. So and I do give you so much credit for putting snowboards on the wall.
Jay Leventhal
I’m down for the the industry.
David Bradbury
That’s I love it. I love it. What keeps you going year in and year out in this thing is it just… I didn’t know you, like, basically started in school and didn’t go really corporate earlier. The other thing like, what’s the what’s the motivation now? Is it just, you know, are you trying to change something in the industry, or is it just money and profitability or community impacts? Like, what’s…
Jay Leventhal
It’s hard to keep the motivation to be honest for that long, and like, you have your ups and downs. And I feel like, when I’m doing good, I love it, just like anyone, you know. And then when I’m doing bad, I’m just like, “Why am I doing this?” you know? And it’s like, I’m not able to. I mean, there’s been a lot of times like my wife would tell you, like, where I just go, “If I was working for someone at this job, I would just quit.” Like, there were times I just felt like, been there, done that, I maxed myself out, like I’m kind of over it. And then there’s other times where I’m just so hyped up, you know, and I can’t wait to work on the next thing.
So that’s just like, natural, but like, it is hard to keep it going. As far as what keeps me going? It’s a passion for giving other people the experience that I have in skiing, like I love skiing and as a kid especially. But even still, I just… I my cons, my customers, actually, I think like skiing more than me. At most of them, they live for it. You know, they come in the way I was when I started this business, when in my 20s, you know, they’re just like, “Ski season!”
I get a little burned out of it sometimes, but I still love going skiing, like I gotta go during the week at some point, but it’s just for… I want people that ski to have as good an experience as possible. I don’t know what it is, but that’s just always been my driver, and it still is, yeah, yeah. So I’m always figuring out, what can I do to make skiing more fun? That’s the mission. Make it more fun.
Nicole Eaton
Yeah, make it more fun.
David Bradbury
Do you have sponsored athletes at all? Is that something you do?
Jay Leventhal
We flow product to them. We don’t do it in the traditional way. I mean, we basically, we have local heroes type people, you know, that will flow them skis, because we like what they represent, you know, but we’re not… there’s not like, a team page, or like, “Hey, you should be like this person, and if you’re not…”
We… I don’t like the idea of like, “You should be like this person. And if you’re not, you should think you’re not good enough, and you need to work towards that.” I like promoting my customers because they’re just real skiers like me, and out there having fun, you know? And if someone’s having fun, or they’re super stoked, if they’re holding up the skis and they have a smile on their face, or some, some kid is like, night skiing, throws a little back flip and barely lands it, like, we’ll post that on social. And people love that.
Yeah, they love it even more. It honestly is, like, more relatable than a super pro, and you got the red cam out of the helicopter. I mean, it just that looks like an authentic backyard. Yes, these days, that’s how it is. You know, it wasn’t always that way. I mean, but back in the day, you do one print ad a month, so it was just like we have to capture that moment by that super athlete. Now it’s like, well, you live that experience too.
David Bradbury
Yeah, I already did that. X Games, yeah, heroes, so, yeah.
Jay Leventhal
I want to do something different again. Like, there’s no room for everyone doing the same thing. Every business can’t have the same position. There’s you’re not going to succeed. No one wants that. So that’s our position. Is support and promote. You know, the customers, the skiers, tDavid Bradbury
Can I ask another question? What other Vermont brands do you… are you like, really impressed with? Other people that have found a niche and outdoor product or not, like, you’re like, okay, they’re they, this is one to watch.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah. I mean, I love Skida. I think you know, you know, right here, there are obviously leaders in pioneering and being unique and finding their spot. But, I mean, there’s so many in Vermont, because so many entrepreneurial people and businesses. I was just over at Beta today, we made a ski for them, a graphic. Sorry, yeah, they’re good.
So, like, I mean, that’s crazy. What’s going on there? That’s so burly, what they’re taking on. And I’ve always been a fan of Burton from back in the day when I was a little kid, following them, going to Manchester, the home base. But, yeah, there’s ton, tons of them. You know, that’s why I love this place, too. It just has that culture.
David Bradbury
And we got to give you a shout out to man, like you answer the bat phone when we call and be like, “Hey, we got this dreamer,” right? That we’re not… we’re not really retail product oriented, right? But to be able to go out to our friends and experts like you to, like, have a conversation, mentor moment, and it means the world to us, and it changes their lives and trajectory. So thank you.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, of course, yeah.
Nicole Eaton
What are your thoughts on Vermont’s outdoor recreational scene right now? LIKE, would you say it’s thriving, or, I don’t know, yeah, what are your thoughts, as you’re saying, like, supporting people having fun on the mountain?
Jay Leventhal
Like, yeah, I think that it’s… I mean, there’s a lot of dreamers in Vermont. You know, people are like, they’re making outerwear, they’re making hard goods, they’re making bikes, they’re making, like, stuff that you never think and who knows if they’ll make it, whatever that might mean.
I mean, it’s, there’s… I always call… there’s an art… like, an art project is running what you think is a business, it just doesn’t make money, yeah? And then a business is the version of that that actually makes money, right? And there’s so… there’s people at all different points of that. And I was one of those people, you know, when I was, when I was a kid, I was, like, not making money, but, like, making shit happen.
Yeah, there’s a lot of people making shit happen in the outdoors industry in Vermont. I don’t know if they’re making money. I don’t know where that business will go as a business, but they’re certainly pioneering stuff. I mean, the thing about this place is, like, you know, you could just put a sign out front of your house, say, “I’m selling jam,” “I’m selling popcorn.” Like people will stop and support people who support any business… like this is the most supportive environment.
So, like, if you got an idea and you actually execute it, someone will support what you’re doing and you’re doing it. And there’s a lot new people doing that in the outdoor industry, but…
David Bradbury
…yeah, but that could be a false signal too, right? You’re like, crushing it. I sold all my jams.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, it’s like me. I was crushing it at the time. Article in the New York Times and Newsweek, and we’re, like, going bankrupt. Like it’s just, like it’s all relative. Like what you see is not always a reality, but it doesn’t mean you’re not making shit happen. Yeah, you know, I mean, so there’s just, like, all different variables. So in Vermont, as far as entrepreneurs and outdoor scene, I think it’s alive and well, yeah. Just a matter of, can they get, can they break through, you know, to become the national…
David Bradbury
It’s been good to see the Outdoor Business Alliance sort of form and do things around workforce or policy. And there’s a lot of, I think the governor recommended some money, a big chunk of money, to support the sector, too, again. So don’t you start calling them up. There’s extra government money for the outdoor business.
Jay Leventhal
I really don’t know. But wouldn’t that be a neat little arc, right? How that ExIm Bank program that was probably an SBA program. It was an SBA. I still work with the SBA. I mean, it’s, it’s amazing, yeah, SBA is great.
David Bradbury
Adam Laughlin is the new director there, and he came out of the Tech Alliance. So, like, really… but it just sucked. It’s like, it’s easier to sell to Japan sometimes than it is to sell to, you know, the next New Hampshire, but it’s never been any easier than today. You know? I mean, that was back in the ’90s, and, like, right now, I could start a business in an hour. I can connect a Shopify website to a bank account. I could source a product from wherever, put it on the site, and I can post on social, pay for an ad, and, like, the same day. Yeah, it’s crazy.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, it’s possible.
David Bradbury
Yeah, if you weren’t selling skis…
Jay Leventhal
I got a million ideas. Too many ideas, but too many ideas that I don’t have time to start. Keep those in the bottom. I would make far more money selling anything but skis. I could assure you that. It’s… no one’s in the ski business to get rich. Yeah, the joke is, you need to start with a lot of money to make a little money. Okay, so it’s a passion industry.
David Bradbury
I love it. I love it. Well, we’re at time.
Nicole Eaton
Okay, I think I had one more question, but I’m trying to remember it, because I just… good… wait, give me a second.
Jay Leventhal
And this place, this place is unbelievable. I have so many friends that work here. I mean, it’s just a blessing.
David Bradbury
Yeah, no, you didn’t include us as a third space. And I was like, I was little…
Jay Leventhal
I didn’t know it was a hangout too!
David Bradbury
The front door is 24/7, too. So like people come in weekends and play ping pong with your kids. You know, maybe they’ve got a parent meeting, but…
Jay Leventhal
Just to have a workspace that’s affordable, super affordable and flexible like that, for startup and to get out of the house. Or maybe you’ve been in business forever, but you just want to get out of the house. It’s awesome. I’m trusting… I’m thinking of coming here.
Nicole Eaton
Yeah. I can’t remember my question so…
David Bradbury
Well, it’s, you know, we’re not very… we’re not as good in the afternoons.
Nicole Eaton
Okay, actually, I think this is great.
David Bradbury
What, are you on fire? But I feel like I had to warm up a little bit.
Nicole Eaton
Start it like three minutes, then you’ll be good. Oh, I know what my question was. Where do you ski?
Jay Leventhal
Stowe and Bolton, mostly, yeah.
Nicole Eaton
All right. Do you do like Bolton for night skiing?
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, it’s great.
David Bradbury
Stowe guy. I live there and we’re…
Nicole Eaton
I’m at Smuggs and Bolton. Night skiing.
Jay Leventhal
Smuggs is fine. Yeah, it’s fun. Yeah, great, great, crazy stuff. And, I mean, the trails, they don’t ever close anything. Yeah, everything’s free for all.
Nicole Eaton
It’s so cool.
David Bradbury
It’s very natural. You’re for… all right? You hit the final question, please.
Nicole Eaton
Sure. Okay, so what founder or leader, past or present would you like to chat with? And why?
Jay Leventhal
I don’t know. Well, it was definitely Jake when he was around. And one time I did get to, like, ride a chair like, with him, which is… it was crazy inspiring just to hang with him for a little bit. So wow, yeah.
David Bradbury
That’s so good. Yeah, my perfect day in Vermont—wrote about it years ago in Outside Magazine—I’m like: powder morning at Stowe, on the chair lift with Jake and others. And then came to Burlington, met with founders, and it was a cancer research team, and then the Flynn had, like, Baryshnikov or something dancing on stage. You did that in one day.
Jay Leventhal
One day. I had like, homemade pizza or something. Like, it just blew my mind, like, you could do all of this in the span of 10 hours. That’s awesome, right?
David Bradbury
Yeah, homemade pizza is obviously the best part.
Jay Leventhal
Yeah, of course. Yeah, totally.
Nicole Eaton
Well, thanks so much Jay for coming on the podcast. Yeah, to our listeners, go to J Skis. It’s the best place to hang out in Burlington. Yeah, it’s perfect.
Jay Leventhal
Check us out online. jskis.com.
Nicole Eaton
Yeah, this social media game is fire. Can I just say I respect the Instagram lives? I respect everything about it. So yes, follow them on Instagram.
David Bradbury
Thank you. Thanks, Jay.
