Small Business Sunday Winners

One Sunday night in 2025 I entered Small Business Sunday, which is a competition launched by Theo Paphitis back in 2010 to support, celebrate and champion small businesses across the UK. It initially started on Twitter (X) but as the world progressed it has opened up to LinkedIn, Insta and still (but less so) X.

Collecting Small Business Sunday certificate from Theo Paphitis

Each week between 5 and 7.30 pm on a Sunday night you can comment on their post about your small business (which most businesses once were, don’t forget that!) then on Monday Theo selects six businesses to become part of this community he supports throughout the year with the Small Business Sunday crew.

I wish I’d screenshotted what I wrote, but I remember highlighting what First Glass Wine Events offers - a quality, informed wine tasting, designed for people to attend solo and make connections with other wine lovers.

When I found out First Glass Wine Events won I was just scrolling and the winners post popped up. I skim read it and thought I saw First Glass Wine Events, but assumed it must have been my original entry or I’d mis-read or something as there are so many entries each week. Then I looked again…and again (and again) and realised we had actually won! Then I read it again to be sure haha.

The support throughout the year includes regional small business bootcamps (I haven’t attended this yet, that will be in May), access to an active SBS community, opportunities to be featured on social platforms, mentoring, discounts at other businesses such as Rymans, and, very helpfully, an annual Small Business Sunday event in Birmingham. This is what I attended in Feb this year. 

It's a bit like an away day for small businesses, with practical advice, inspiring stories and reminders on resilience (because god do you need it, iykyk), alongside chats on accountancy, banking solutions and social media. All of this is free support for winners which is both generous and valuable.

During the seminars I wrote takeaways in my new orange notebook (side note, the goody bag you get given here is insanely good), including ‘Everything is made by someone, why not you?’, and also ‘work on your business not just in your business’.

As mentioned, the theme this year was resilience. You get so many knock backs and surprises (good and bad) running a business, that you don’t always see coming. Everyone there had their own experience. I believe inner resilience is something you have to keep coming back to, not just in business but in life as well. That, and a lot of tenacity helps!

At the event I also got to meet Theo and collect the certificate, we spoke about First Glass Wine Events (and his love for Pomerol). Attending the event was such a productive day out and also a chance for celebration, before I returned to London to get back to it again with the same tenacity and resilience that got me there in the first place :) .