Anthony Tolliver hasn’t formally announced his retirement, but he has accepted that this is the end of his NBA journey.
Don’t pity the 14-year veteran, who played for 11 NBA teams and was with the Philadelphia 76ers last year. The 37-year-old big man, who resides outside of Dallas, lived out his wildest dreams playing with and against some of the game’s all-time greats. And during his career, Tolliver set himself up so that one day he wouldn’t need basketball: he parlayed more than $35 million in estimated career earnings into a portfolio of real estate, venture capital and retail investments.
Tolliver, a former NBA Players Association (NBPA) executive committee member, believes in identifying voids in markets and filling them-often with little fanfare. The founder of 356 Ventures is more interested in taking fewer risks and preserving his wealth, and he’s also shunned the startup route.
Tolliver’s two top ventures are Big Blanket Co., a blanket supplier, and Anything Possible Brands, a fishing tackle supplier. The two businesses combined have exceeded more than $60 million in annual sales. They also make Tolliver an outlier in the Silicon Valley era. His conservative approach of capitalizing on unfashionable retail businesses is also out of fashion amid the standard athlete portfolio of digital ventures and crypto.
“It’s all about consistency for me,” Tolliver said in a video interview. “Sexy is cool if it’s consistent and makes money for everyone involved. But if it doesn’t, I’d rather stick with the boring stuff.”
Former NBPA vice president Mo Evans believes Tolliver is in a fortunate position as someone who made millions being a role player as opposed to a high-profile starter. He leveraged the largess provided by the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement to make strong outside investments in boring yet profitable businesses that provide solutions for a variety of consumers.
“That’s when you don’t have to take the same amount of risk,” Evans said in a phone interview. “He’s able to not just look at [company] projections but look at actual historical data to invest in growth potential based how its performing … [He’s] not scavenging but being strategic.”
As an undrafted rookie out of Creighton in 2007, Tolliver knew nothing was guaranteed. The uncertainty encouraged him to develop his business acumen earlier instead of later.
“I’ve been preparing for the end since the beginning,” said Tolliver, a husband and father of four.
It wasn’t until he started playing for the Minnesota Timberwolves in 2012 when he first decided to partner with a close friend to create an inventions company centered around fishing lures for kids after finding the industry had little to offer non-adult anglers.
That company, Kids Casters, would later morph into Anything Possible Brands, which today distributes an array of fishing-related products nationwide. Anything Possible’s inventory for casual adult anglers makes up more than half of the company’s sales, yet the mission remains the same—encouraging people to fish and providing durable products for anglers of all skill levels.
Over the last decade, Tolliver has increased his initial investment of $150,000 to roughly $1 million, including both equity and debt. His equity partner, former Sacramento Kings star Brad Miller, came in to help scale the business, and Promus Equity completed a 75% company buyout in 2020. Tolliver still owns 5% of the company, which pays licensing fees to brands, including Nickelodeon and Discovery Channel, that appeal to larger audiences.
“It’s been a great model for us,” Tolliver said of the company, which clears about $35 million a year in sales. “It allows us to get in the door which [then] allows us to develop our own products with our own brand … [Once] we get our own [branded products] in [stores] then we’ll have much higher margins.”
Tolliver is eyeing another exit within the next three to five years as revenue continues to escalate.
Manhattan West Asset Management executive director Justin McCurdy serves as a financial advisor for current and former NBA players. He looks at Tolliver’s story as an example of how athletes can succeed using alternative investments, especially in tough economic conditions.
“If you look at years like this year where the stock market and bond market are down simultaneously, investors from all walks of life, not just athletes, are looking for investments that are safe and risk-adjusted that will provide a return when the market isn’t performing the way they’d like,” he said.
Tolliver found another hole in the market in 2018 when he decided to become a seed investor for Big Blanket Co. At 6-foot-8, Tolliver realized 10-foot by 10-foot blankets could provide much-needed comfort for oversized people like himself. It became apparent later that normal-sized people and their families enjoy having the extra plush around their homes, too.
“You get into a niche and sometimes you realize that it’s bigger than you thought,” he said. “That’s why [Big Blanket] had such explosive growth so quickly.”
The company made almost $3 million in sales during the first year before leaping to $21 million in 2019. With people at home at the onset of the pandemic, sales leaped to an all-time high of nearly $32 million in 2020. While things have cooled over the last year, the company is primed to keep growing. Tolliver retains a 10% stake of Big Blanket Co. after Dallas-based Altacrest Capital bought 55% of the company in a deal with Atlanta-based firm Source Capital last summer.
Tolliver plays in venture capital too. He invested in Airbnb, Lyft, Lime and Hims and Hers Health, Inc. before they went public. Those returns have helped fund his other ventures, including a Christian apparel line (Active Faith) and a new player-centric sports entertainment company (PlayersTV).
It’s all under the umbrella of 356 Ventures, which he’s looking to strengthen now that on-court commitments are cleared. Comfy blankets and affordable fishing gear are now more than just comfortable retirement accessories.
