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When I want to sound cool I say I work at a tech startup. When I want to sound likable I say I work at a small business.

Haha this is awesome! Totally gonna steal this for the next time I want to be liked. :)

bank account. tech startups have huge balances compared to lifetime

Those are orthogonal classifications. Startup is an early stage company, bootstrapping income/revenue flows. Small business is well... small, usually in terms of money flows and number of employees.

In contemporary usage "tech startup" usually means an early stage company expected to relatively quickly grow their money flows and have high opex-to-capex and incoming-to-outgoing transaction ratios.

Growth rate

Yeap. Small businesses will likely stay small because the key differences are in the founders' mindset. Both can start out at leveraged brokeitude.