This article first gives the authors' perspectives on how the field of plasma-based acceleration (PBA) developed and how the current experiments, theory and simulations are motivated by long term applications of PBA to a future linear collider and an X-ray free electron laser. We then focus on some early applications that will likely emerge from PBA research such as electron beam radiotherapy, directional but incoherent X-ray beams for science and technology, near single cycle continuously tunable IR pulses for spectroscopy and non-perturbative QED enabled by PBA electron beams. In our opinion these near term applications could be developed within the next decade with a concerted effort by the community.