The aim of the paper is to explore the issue of business resilience to a crisis based on a literature review and a survey of Latvian entrepreneurs who have a certain experience in overcoming economic crises in recent years. The following seven categories have been developed in the course of qualitative content analysis of text fragments extracted from related research papers: 1) ability to return to the original state or to a state of new equilibrium after economic disturbance; 2) ability to adapt to changing circumstances with minimal destructive effects; 3) ability to accept risks in unexpected, complex and dangerous conditions; 4) ability to understand problems (difficulties, challenges) and overcome them; 5) ability to create new opportunities and realise innovative solutions; 6) ability to face the uncertain future with positive attitude, creativity, and optimism; 7) ability to learn from mistakes. In the survey of the entrepreneurs these categories were confirmed as being crucial elements of business crisis resilience; they were complemented with two more categories – 8) ability to make a competent team able to ensure financial viability of the company; and 9) ability to mobilize financial and non-financial resources and adapt them to the crisis situation.