That being said be leery of companies that are selling themselves as "small business" in contrast with startups. I've seen this a lot over the last year, and in each case the management has been . . . problematic at best.

People who are starting a business will just start a business and call it a business. People who are marketing themselves as a small business right now, and comparing it to a startup, seem to be a weird third group.

Could you go a bit more in details of what you mean here? What strange things have you seen?

"Small business" is weird term.

The Small Business Administration defines a "small business" as one with revenue between $1 million and $40 million, and between 100 and 500 employees. To my mind, no business on that scale is a "small business".

As a result, for decades, I've considered "small business" to be essentially a meaningless term.

A startup is a specific sort of thing, and may or may not be a small business (even by the SBA's definition). I've long avoided labelling my startups as a "startup" because that term comes loaded with all sorts of implications I'd rather avoid.

I do what you mentioned: my business is a "business". No adjectives are necessary.

Resilient business can mean "more attune to actual need" or it can mean "hardened addiction and enforcement" .. the real world contains both.. but when the population's income and opportunity shrink, it is not the feel-good companies that win the money.

"the people" use products from dozens VC-companies every day

This presumes said products would not exist without VC-companies, which I will gladly assert is false nearly 100% of the time.