The journey of an entrepreneur after a startup failure can be compared to the experience of losing a loved one. The resultant grief of such a loss is discussed in the famous paper titled the “Five stages of grief” by Kubler- Ross. These five stages are identified as denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. Grief caused by a loss of a loved one and the emotions around failure of a startup are in many ways alike. Startup failure is inevitably deeply personal for the entrepreneur and in addition to the circle of friends and family involved in a death, failure in business is a very public event involving creditors, customers and the wider industry in which the business operated. There is no getting away from the fact that when a business fails, blame will always be apportioned to the entrepreneur. However, just as in personal grief, there is a known journey that most people will travel and come out at the other end. Let’s take a closer look at the five stages with a few thoughts on bouncing back into business at the end: