Wow, what a substantial response. That was really helpful. My partner and I appreciate you so much for taking the time to do that.

So a couple other questions:

I could find a template online for a business plan, but to create a proper one, I'd need some help with that. Is that also part of the services offered by the attorney? Or is that something I'd need to create by myself or seek help with elsewhere? I'm guessing it will need projections into the future in terms of earnings and expenses and everything else that goes into a business plan, and quite frankly, I don't know how to put that together.

After talking with you, and there being so much at stake, although I'm not sure which service I will go with, but I will certainly be hiring an attorney because we have one shot at this and we can't afford anything else but to get it right the first time.

I have an understanding of what needs to be done to make it all happen, but I'm not certain about which business exactly I will be launching. As I mentioned in my post, I'm a computer, networking and A/V guy, so I was thinking something along the lines of a PC repair/virus removal business, with maybe even some other services offered like user education for older/non-tech people, to teach them about their, devices, computers and the internet. My question is, if I decide to go a different route business-wise, (I was also thinking about a commercial cleaning/window cleaning service), or offered services in addition to these later on, would that be permitted? My main idea is to just set up a consulting company that could go in many different routes depending on what the individual customer needed. Or maybe even market myself to take consulting contracts from other IT businesses to work in a capacity such as a helpdesk or network guy. I'll let you in on a little secret, though. I'm from California and my real million (euro) idea would be to start a small restaurant over there specializing in authentic Mexican food, predominantly featuring burritos! Most of my friends in the Southern portion of the country haven't have a burrito before and to me that's unacceptable! I really think it'd spread like wildfire and you could build an empire with this idea, one burrito or 5 euros at a time. Only thing stopping me from doing this is the start-up capital, because I realize it would require substantially more money than me working by myself and helping people with technical installs or fixing their stuff.

Anyways, please do let me know you thoughts on this - In terms of the putting the business together and what you think about my business idea(s). In the meantime, I'll contact your immigration lawyer and see if I can't get some more information from him.

Last thing I want to mention is, not sure where you guys are located, but our house is in Eindhoven. We are both highly motivated to sort this out, so it isn't "if" but "when", but I'd love to meet up for a beer or a nice meal on me for the thoughtful input and guidance on this.