Phil St.Cyr’s entrepreneurial path has rarely followed a straight line. Rootree grew from his family’s need to package microgreens into a packaging business, which led to building marketing capabilities and eventually adding smart-packaging technology. His latest experiment began with another family connection: His 12-year-old daughter, Samaya, loves basketball. After Rootree created personalized packaging for the Las Vegas Aces, Phil wondered whether the same customization mindset could be applied to the basketball itself — and whether those balls could be made in Canada.
The idea sent the St.Cyr family to China to learn how basketballs are actually manufactured, from printing and cutting to gluing and assembling the panels. Their goal became creating locally made, print-on-demand personalized basketballs. But Phil’s bigger point for fellow printers extends well beyond sports. Print companies spend years building presses, software, specialized teams, production knowledge, and other expensive infrastructure to enable their customers’ ideas. What happens when they turn some of that capability inward and become their own customer?
For Phil, that question opens another path for entrepreneurship. Rootree can already help brands design products, produce packaging, pack products, prepare them for retail, meet compliance requirements, and even handle logistics. Combining those capabilities with interests close to his family — including health, sports, and supporting the next generation — gives Rootree room to create demand instead of waiting for it to arrive.
The basketball project is still a journey in progress, which may be exactly what makes the story useful: Try something, learn the process, accept the mistakes, and look at the infrastructure you already own with fresh eyes.
