i.e. What I mean is: If one were to go embark upon the long road towards putting together a start-up, is there some sort of road-map or training material that you would recommend?
I think the first thing to note is that: there is no 'right way' to start a start-up, though there are probably some wrong ways and things to avoid. To that end, you probably only need to do a minimal amount of reading, and then it is very much all about doing. Only once you start the process will you begin to see specific gaps in your knowledge or a bump in the road you need to get over. This where specific reading and resources will be 10x more valuable than general roadmaps.
However, these are good resources:
http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/on-entrepeneurship/ - Mark Suster's blog is excellent, and his indexed start-up advice is an amazing resource to being with. http://www.amazon.com/The-Startup-Owners-Manual-Step-By-Step... - this book is very much in vogue at the moment. I have it, and it makes a lot of sense, and takes you one step at a time down the most important path of all - product development http://www.quora.com - this should be one of your best friends, as it has a huge amount of start-up related advice
Hope this helps.