By the Bay Home Scents gets #SBS award from Dragon’s Den star Theo Paphitis

In November, Jordan owner of By the Bay Home Scents, which produces vegan friendly home fragrances, tweeted Theo about her business during ‘Small Business Sunday’ and was one of six weekly winners to gain a retweet to his near half a million Twitter followers.

Business and retail entrepreneur, Theo re‐tweeted By the Bay’s message to his almost 500,000 followers and as a result has received a massive boost. It was also profiled on the #SBS website (www.theopaphitissbs.com) that is exclusive to all Small Business Sunday winners.

Jordan explained: “I’m from Bangor, that’s where the business name was inspired by Ballyholme Bay. I wanted to create a brand that had nothing but pure ingredients in it, and the packaging to be fully recyclable and reusable. I previously owned an award winning salon and did the home fragrance as a hobby. Then Covid hit, and I had to shut the shop. Being stuck in the house, home schooling, my husband working crazy hours, puppy training and Joe Wicks workouts was difficult.

“I put all the money I had into By The Bay and spent many late nights working on how to grow it. We converted our garage into a workshop and I never opened my salon up again. This is now my full time business. We are now in nine different shops and want to grow it as much as possible.”

To mark the Twitter boost, Jordan recently travelled to the SBS Event in Birmingham to meet Theo and receive her #SBS accolade.

She continued: “When I walked into the arena they had different zones, for different business genres so we could socialise in whichever areas were of interest to us. There were different speakers including Touker Sulleyman and Rachel from The Tiny Box company - she won Dragons Den around 10 years ago. What intrigued me the most was how open they were with talking so openly about business failure and how open they were about it, along with all their successes of course. It was inspiring.

“Theo explained that our business was in the 0.8% of all the entries to win the award. And that since 2020 #SBS has had more female entrepreneurs than men (75% more) entering. I feel so passionately about women in business and especially being a mum of two girls. When I met Theo, we chatted about my brand and where I was from. He loved the packaging and my business ethos.”