alt Hacker NewsIsn't this the entrepreneur-or-freelancer divide? Is the thing you're working on making you money while you sleep (entrepreneur, "startup" is appropriate) or do you only get paid when you work (freelancer, "self-employed" is appropriate).
Not saying this distinction is useful, but at least it's a common way of talking about the various forms of "being your own boss".
In my head, a startup is something that can scale, and possibly needs scale. So me selling woodworking will always be limited by how much I can produce, thats still a businesses but not a startup. Selling a SaaS product however makes little money in the start, but can scale sales virtually infinitely.
I think people have their own axis they divide this on. So none of us are correct. For some it's also a vanity thing, where entrepreneur or startup sounds better.