PROVO — Matt Kennedy is (LDS) living large.
Some 180,000 subscribers receive daily e-mail from his Web site, ldsliving.com. As many as 7,000 customers a month order books, videos, CDs, software and jewelry from the site. More than 10,000 subscribe to his fledgling magazine, LDS Living. Another 8,000 have e-mail addresses from his new ISP ending in @ldsliving.com. And thousands of morning television channel surfers might soon click across a new program, LDS Living.
Kennedy figures his growing company will make about $5 million this year, up $1.5 million from 2002.
Not bad for a one-time Catholic altar boy who ran away from home at age 14.
"It's easy and it's fun," said Kennedy, wearing a golf shirt and khaki shorts in his East Bay office/warehouse. "And it's a dang lot of money."
The LDS products market is thriving, though no one seems to be able to put a dollar value on the industry that has sprouted up around The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
"I know it's big, at least multi-multi-million dollar," said Doyl Peck, president of Sounds of Zion, the largest distributor of Latter-day Saint goods. "Whether it's $100 million or $200 million or what, I really don't know."
Most companies that deal in LDS-oriented products are private and don't divulge financial information.
Covenant Communications publishes about 60 LDS-oriented books a year, triple that of a decade ago. Marketing Vice President Robby Nichols says the market is growing, though not exploding at the moment. Independent books stores, he said, come and go.
Still, "life's been good to us. No question."
Kennedy's best explanation for the boom is that LDS Church membership — some 11 million strong — has reached a critical mass.
"There's just enough Mormons now," he said.
Provo-based LDS Living has doubled its earnings in each of its first four years.
It has sold some 190,000 VHS and DVD copies of "The Singles Ward," a movie the company co-produced. The movie soundtrack has sold 70,000 copies.
"That's a gold record in the LDS market," Kennedy said.
LDS Living has other plans to strike while it's hot. Kennedy has a line of interactive scriptural software to appeal to what he calls the "Nickelodeon generation." The company also is dabbling in the national market with PDA software containing various versions of the Bible and famous political speeches.
LDS Living also is "really, really close" to putting together a daytime TV show featuring family, cooking and book segments, he said.
Ben Peterson, who runs an online dating service called ldsmingle.com, describes Kennedy as someone who thinks outside the box. "He's very dynamic, very intelligent."
Kennedy, 35, attributes business success to hard work and being in the right place at the right time. "I'm constantly standing on the platform waiting for the train to stop," he said.
But it's hard for him to pick out the most serendipitous moment in his King Midas life.
Maybe it was the day a three-wheeler crashed near him while he slept in an alfalfa field to which he had run to escape alcoholic parents. The boy who wrecked his vehicle turned out to be a school acquaintance. He invited the runaway to take a shower at his house. Kennedy wound up spending his teenage years living with the family. They were members of the LDS Church.
Or the day a date asked him at age 19 when he planned to turn in his missionary papers for the church, though unbeknownst to her, he wasn't a member. He joined a short time later and served a mission in Japan.
Or the day he met a Japanese businessman on his mission who later helped him launch a lucrative business. The man called Kennedy one day asking him to ship American products for resale in Japan. Kennedy stumbled across 600 pairs of L.L. Bean jeans for $14 a pair. He figured he'd mark them up $2 or $3. The Japanese man offered $53 a pair, netting Kennedy about $25,000.
Kennedy later formed a company that exported goods, mostly camping gear, to Japan. In 1996, it did $41 million worth of business. When the Asian economy crashed two years later, so did the company. He emerged relatively unscathed.
Looking for a new gig, Kennedy stumbled into selling LDS products with a goofy idea for a missionary door knocker.
As a missionary in Japan, the Arizona native didn't like to remove his gloves in the winter so he carried a rock or golf ball to tap on doors. He had 1,000 handball-sized brass globes made. Although they didn't sell quickly, his customers routinely asked if he had other LDS items to sell. He didn't. But not for long.
An LDS day planner, which he designed on his home computer, was his first real venture. Selling only on the Internet, it took off immediately. But it didn't bring in big money. Because the Web site was not set to accept credit cards, Kennedy billed customers. At least 60 percent never paid.
Maybe Kennedy's luckiest break was when a spurned Internet advertising sales rep turned around to make a last-ditch plea to give her company a try before walking out the door. For some reason, he changed his mind. The $1,700 per month fee paid off quickly. Kennedy did $40,000 in sales on the first e-mail ad.
"It just grew out of that door knocker into this," Kennedy said as workers busily maneuver through piles of boxes to fill hundreds of orders. "It's a living."
E-MAIL: romboy@desnews.com