I have to admit that I'm not a huge fan of business books. I have read plenty of them but find that all too often they fail in on one of two areas:

1) All theory and what you "should" do but no practical application, or
2) Great tactical steps and "how to's" but no way of helping you understand how those things translate to the nuances of your business or idea.

Have you ever read a great business book, finished it feeling motivated and excited about the future only to realize that understanding how to apply all that stuff was as cloudy as ever? That is because one of the greatest challenges for anyone writing on business is helping readers understand how to apply what they are learning, a task so daunting that I think most books don't really try as doing so becomes less a business lesson and more of a lesson in creative thinking. It's not that the books don't contain great content and ingenious thinking, often they do, but they just don't cross the bridge to practical application. The best tools, explanations and teachers take complex ideas and make them look simple, even when they are not and in doing so make it easier for the reader or student to apply it to their own unique situation.

One of the my goals for vsellis.com is to pick up where some of those great ideas leave off and help you figure out how to apply what you have learned. Of course every business is different but how we think about those ideas and learn to apply them is pretty universal. To achieve that I'll be developing and publishing various types of IP (intellectual property in the form of applications, whitepapers, tools, …) to help cross the bridge from theory to application. The catch is to change the way we think about and learn the translation process, not to necessarily to do the translation for you, though the best road to that end will be through examples and explanation. Along the way we'll address problems and solutions and help you move from sitting on your couch reading a book to running your business.

But before we begin, allow me to set your expectations; you still have to do the work. I'm simply going to help you develop the idea, then move past the idea and excitement to actually working on your business, and in the process, more quickly get over the inevitable bumps in the road.

I'll add to this discussion that I won't recommend any books, blogs, papers or tools that I haven't read or used myself and that I wouldn't be willing to pay for myself. Also, I don't judge any of those things based on popularity or lack thereof, but rather on the content and the value it brings to what we are trying to accomplish.