[sixdimensional]

Sorry it doesn't directly address your questions, but I have one comment based on observations of people who have tried to go from starting a consulting firm to their own products. That observation is, they get so busy running the consulting firm it takes all their time and energy and they never got to making their own products.

Thought to consider - if you really want to make your own products to sell, just jump right to working on that and spend all your energy doing that. Unless you genuinely want to do consulting work, of course.

Consider that starting and running a business is the same amount of work from the paperwork perspective. And a consulting firm just sells services where results are often owned by the client- whereas the product you make for your own company can be owned by you.

That's not to dissuade you at all if it is your dream to take this path. Just food for thought about what your dream really is and how much time/money you have to pursuse it.