Creating a short-term mission for your Online Business

By personality and practice, I am a pioneer and a builder.  I enjoy starting things and helping them grow.  There's a reason I frequently say that Platform Launchers is a place where we help you build, grow, and monetize your online platform.  That's exactly what we're aiming to do, and it's how I'm personally wired to operate.

In addition to being a builder, I'm also a visionary.  I daydream constantly.  I see things by faith before I see them with my eyes.  That concept applies to my spiritual life, but it also applies to my business practices.  I envision the ultimate outcomes before I see those outcomes operating in real-time.

Knowing all this to be true of myself, I find it helpful to put some parameters on my dreaming.  These self-imposed parameters also come with deadlines that force me to get things done in a prescribed amount of time.  I like operating that way, but there's another way I also enjoy phrasing these tasks in my mind.  I enjoy thinking of them as "short-term missions." 

Let me give you an example of what I'm talking about because I think you'll find this helpful.

Nearly two years ago, I decided to start a new online platform.  It's a platform that allows me to share the various forms of faith-based content that I'm creating in new and creative ways.  People regularly ask me for help in this area.  Specifically, I often get asked to help others learn the content of the Bible.  So I started BibleStudyHeadquarters.com to be a hub of useful information and tools that can help others grow in their faith in the Lord and knowledge of the Scriptures.

Building a platform can feel a little overwhelming at first, so to prevent myself from feeling that way, I broke the task down into smaller segments.  These were my short-term missions.

My first mission was to purchase the domain and set up hosting.

My next mission was to develop a logo.

Once those items were taken care of, my next mission involved building the website, one page at a time.  I didn't burden myself with thoughts of getting it all created at once.  I just took it a piece, or a page at a time, and set up the site gradually.  

Once the site was built, my next short-term mission was to refine it and improve its user-friendliness.

My next mission was to add content to the site, which I did, one week at a time by creating blog posts.

Then I took on the mission of creating an online course that site visitors could download for free.

My next mission was to connect with other sites that create similar forms of content.  I gave them permission to use my content on their sites as well with the understanding that they would create a backlink to BibleStudyHeadquarters.com every time they used my content.  That helped build the site's visibility, authority, and search engine optimization on sites like Google and other search engines.

Now I have a brand new, short-term mission.  I'm actually kind of excited about it.

As I have been monitoring the analytics for the website, I noticed something VERY exciting, particularly during the past few months.  Visits to the site appear to be growing exponentially.  They have literally 10x'd since one year ago (which makes me wonder if the site may 10x again over the course of this coming year).

As the site has matured and usage is dramatically increasing, I would like to explore various ways that the site can be ethically monetized without compromising its content or mission.

Most people understand that when you take on a labor of love like I did with that platform, there are all kinds of expenses you incur to do so.  That fact doesn't bother me.  I expected it when I purchased the domain and began paying for the software and hosting that are necessary to keep everything running.  It costs thousands of dollars every year, but I think that's money well spent.

At the same time, I would be more than happy to recoup some of those expenses over time, and I've made it my short-term mission to explore my options.  I have several ideas that I will experiment with over time until I find the recipe that best fits my overall mission and purpose for the platform.

What about you?

What are you in the process of building?

Have you identified a short-term mission that you could commit yourself to that might help you reach some of your long-term goals?

In general, entrepreneurs are dreamers.  We can usually see steps 1 and 27, but we struggle to focus on steps 2 through 26.  We see the start and the finish, but don't always spend enough time on the many steps that come in-between.

Let me encourage you to treat those in-between steps like short-term missions.  It's more fun to accomplish them when that's the attitude you take toward them.  The in-between steps aren't burdens to be endured.  They're opportunities to pursue.  It might even be nice if you considered rewarding yourself with something nice as you complete each short-term mission throughout the course of your overall quest.

I know what my current mission needs to be.  It's time for me to develop tools that will help me fund my platform over the long-term.  What's your mission?  Are you willing to carve out small, dedicated, segments of time to pursue it?

© John Stange, 2025