It is well established that small firms typically pursue personal and family goals as well as purely profit-seeking ones. Yet this evidence relates to value in the sense of rewards and satisfaction. But do wider social values shape the behaviour of the small firm, and if so in what ways? The sociology of values offers some guidance here, but it is mainly concerned with how spheres outside the economy sustain opposition to the hegemony of pure market value. We address the intersection of value and values in the case of very small (micro) businesses. Using illustrative evidence from three sectors, we show that family, communal and social values informed the business, and we thus complement recent studies that have addressed ‘lay theories of value’. Different lay theories operate in different business contexts. On the basis of this evidence, the main contribution is to outline a framework to capture how the relationship between value and values plays out across a range of market contexts.