What Happens After the Applause Fades Post-Launch?

This article is for the 20-something-year-olds who send me their pitches day in and day out. If I’ve already spoken to you, then you’ve already heard this before.

Every industry has its rituals of spectacle. In business, that ritual is the launch. We pour energy into unveiling the minimum viable product, celebrating the award, or cutting the ribbon on a new office. Photographers capture the moment. Speeches are given. Sometimes there’s champagne. But beneath the confetti lies an uncomfortable truth: launches are the easy part. The harder, slower, quieter work begins after the applause fades.

I have sat in offices where executives obsessed over the launch date as if it were destiny, and in village markets where farmers marked “first sales” with dancing and drums. Both moments mattered, but both were only beginnings. If we are serious about innovation, growth, and long-term transformation, we need to move our gaze from the spectacle of starting to the discipline of sustaining.

That is the heart of post-launch: resilience.

The Seduction of the Launch

There’s something psychologically irresistible about launches. Humans are wired to love novelty. Neuroscientists have shown that the dopamine reward system in our brains spikes when we encounter something new, whether it’s a shiny phone, a bold idea, or even just a fresh headline. Media outlets know this. Investors too. Politicians cut ribbons not because concrete drying is newsworthy, but because audiences thrill at beginnings.

This is why, across the globe, we celebrate MVPs (minimum viable products) as if they are fully fledged companies. It is why African tech hubs routinely generate more media for demo days than for five-year sustainability reports. And it is why entrepreneurs sometimes fall prey to the “founder hero” narrative, where the drama of ignition is treated as the whole story. It is not.

But novelty is not the same as resilience. A launch without a maintenance plan is a short-lived firework: spectacular, yes, but fading into darkness just as quickly.

The Mirage of the Launch

History is littered with launches that dazzled and died. Consider Theranos in the United States. Its promise to revolutionise blood testing was celebrated with billion-dollar valuations and magazine covers. But beneath the surface, the post-launch discipline of peer review, maintenance of credibility, and incremental improvements was absent. What collapsed was not only a company but the trust itself.

Closer to home, Africa has seen its share of high-profile launches that stumbled. Some governments have launched industrial parks with ribbon cuttings, only for machinery to rust months later because spare parts were never budgeted. Some start-ups dazzled investors with apps that attracted early downloads but failed to update their servers or adapt to user feedback. The “launch mirage” creates the illusion of progress, but without systems of learning and adjustment, it is simply that: an illusion.

The financial world provides the starkest reminder. The 2008 crisis was triggered by instruments whose launches were celebrated on Wall Street as “innovations.” What followed was not resilience but collapse because the systems sustaining them were never stress-tested.

Feedback Loops are Oxygen

Resilience, by contrast, is sustained by feedback. In farming, you know that crops respond to rainfall differently each season. Farmers in Ghana’s northern regions adjust planting times not once, but continuously, as they observe weather changes. This is a feedback loop: observe, adapt, survive.

In business, feedback loops serve the same purpose. Amazon’s entire empire rests not just on its launch as an online bookstore, but on its obsessive iteration. It tests relentlessly, gathering user data, refining logistics, tweaking algorithms. This is invisible to the public but vital to its survival.

At Maxwell Investments Group, our networks of farmers thrive not because we launched contracts once, but because we maintain trust through constant recalibration: pricing updates, transparent communication, and swift adjustments when supply chains falter. Post-launch resilience is not a product but it’s a living conversation between system and environment.

The Fragility of Forgetfulness

Another enemy of resilience is forgetfulness. Institutional memory is often the first casualty of obsession with novelty.

Africa offers sobering examples. Colonial governments built railways that spurred trade. But after independence, maintenance was neglected. Today, many of those tracks lie in disrepair, symbols not of progress but of the cost of forgetting.

In corporate settings, the same pattern repeats. Leadership turnover wipes out lessons learned. Staff rotate, reports gather dust, and every new executive wants to “reinvent” the organisation. The absence of structured memory forces companies to repeat mistakes.

At Maxwell Investments Group, we deliberately invest in documenting processes, creating playbooks, and cross-training teams. This is not glamorous work, and it rarely earns headlines. But it prevents fragility. It keeps wisdom alive even when people move on.

The Resilience Dividend

Why should anyone care about the slow grind of maintenance and feedback? Because resilience pays dividends that launches never can.

Investors often look for signals of durability. A start-up that survives its first storm attracts more serious capital than one that dazzles at demo day. In fact, resilience itself becomes a form of collateral: proof that an enterprise will not collapse at the first sign of market turbulence.

Consider Ghana’s cocoa sector. International buyers favour suppliers who can consistently deliver quality beans year after year, not just one harvest. That consistency commands premiums. The same is true in manufacturing, where the reliability of supply chains attracts global partners.

The resilience dividend is both financial and reputational. Organisations known for post-launch stamina earn trust, and trust multiplies opportunity.

Why We Celebrate Launches, Not Longevity

And yet, despite this evidence, our culture continues to reward launches more than longevity. Why?

Partly, it is novelty bias. Humans overvalue the new and undervalue the old. Media houses too are incentivised to cover fresh stories rather than long maintenance journeys. And capital markets often pressure leaders to show short-term wins rather than long-term stability.

Even in awards ceremonies, categories for “Best Innovation” or “Most Promising Start-up” are far more common than categories celebrating a decade of quiet excellence. We lionise beginnings, not endurance. The danger is that our incentives teach entrepreneurs to chase applause rather than to build resilience.

The Invisible Work of Maintenance

Maintenance has an image problem. It is seen as dull, uncreative, “merely operational.” But look closer: maintenance is itself a form of innovation.

A road that lasts fifty years is more innovative than a road that crumbles in five. A supply chain that adapts to shocks is more inventive than one that collapses under pressure. A hospital that quietly maintains hygiene protocols saves more lives than one that simply builds a new wing.

We should recognise the importance of unseen work. Tasks such as updating systems, training staff, refining processes, and nurturing relationships are not just administrative chores; they form the core of resilience. Furthermore, they often require more creativity than the initial launch ever did.

Resilience as Culture, Not Process

Finally, post-launch resilience is not only about systems; it is about culture. Organisations that survive do so because their people embody resilience. They embrace humility, accept feedback, and see mistakes as learning fuel.

In our own ecosystem, young entrepreneurs work side by side with the experienced executives. The culture is not “get it right the first time” but “learn, adapt, improve.” That culture ensures that when challenges come, and oh they always come, the team responds with resilience rather than collapse.

Culture, in the end, is the deepest infrastructure of resilience. Without it, even the best processes fail.

What If We Measured Success Differently?

What if we measured success not by how loudly a business launched, but by how long it lasted? What if awards were given for a decade of consistency, not a day of novelty?

Imagine the transformation if investors and societies began to celebrate maintenance teams, resilience engineers, and those who sustain institutions through storms. Imagine if the quiet work of keeping systems alive was valued as much as the noisy work of launching them.

The truth is, launches matter. But without post-launch resilience, they are hollow. Innovation is not an event oo, it is an endurance. It is not measured in days of applause, but in many years of impact.

When the applause fades, when the cameras leave, when the champagne bottles are empty, that is when the real work begins. And that is the work that builds futures worth having.

I hope you found this article both insightful and enjoyable. Your feedback is greatly valued and appreciated. I welcome any suggestions for topics you would like me to cover or provide insights on. You can schedule a meeting with me through my Calendly at www.calendly.com/maxwellampong. Alternatively, connect with me through various channels on my Linktree page at www.linktr.ee/themax. Subscribe to the ‘Entrepreneur In You’ newsletter here: https://lnkd.in/d-hgCVPy.

I wish you a highly productive and successful week ahead!

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The author, Dr. Maxwell Ampong, serves as the CEO of Maxwell Investments Group. He is also an Honorary Curator at the Ghana National Museum and the Official Business Advisor with Ghana’s largest agricultural trade union under Ghana’s Trade Union Congress (TUC). Founder of WellMax Inclusive Insurance and WellMax Micro-Credit, Dr. Ampong writes on relevant economic topics and provides general perspective pieces. ‘Entrepreneur In You’ operates under the auspices of the Africa School of Entrepreneurship, an initiative of Maxwell Investments Group.

Disclaimer: The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the author, Dr. Maxwell Ampong, and do not necessarily reflect the official policy, position, or beliefs of Maxwell Investments Group or any of its affiliates. Any references to policy or regulation reflect the author’s interpretation and are not intended to represent the formal stance of Maxwell Investments Group. This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, or investment advice. Readers should seek independent advice before making any decisions based on this material. Maxwell Investments Group assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content or for any actions taken based on the information provided.