Congratulations man! Some short tips.
- have a coach that understand you are young enough to take responsibilities and take you seriously.
- who you want really reach? No b*****t target market, define it! .
-test the market with some free tools/webside or crowdfunding campaign first.

CREATE MOMENTUM, continue feedbacking your BM and get feedback from all the people. I was selling newspaper at 14 years old. none were taking me seriously so i went to some old guys, made them selling my papers and payed per commission. I made more money at the end :)

combine it with a % given after the placement than. Alternative a combination between that and a fee payed from the clients to you. Let me know if you want more example.

If you are in USA, I would create a legal entity in Delaware for example and go on with the crowdfunding campaign. For what i know Amazon is doing some kind of pretesting and during that just spread the word to some great book groups or go flyering to NYC libraries.

Engage your leads and create momentum for your book. you could also do some website and performing some A/B testing in order to understand what the customer is looking with some help of some SEO. After you get an impression and you go crowdfunding. Taxes dependes if you are doing the earning for yourselves or on a funded entity. You can just sell you book though Amazon and file on your earning afterwards :)

First focus on one service you are providing to your target market. In a Product management field, before even to consider to penetrate a new market you need to optimize your daily services. After that US and AU have different way to do Business and lead me to a conclusion that you did't get in deep to understand where to go and your current BM will work in an efficient way. Remeber the competition and where you can differenciate yourselfe too. Consider to create a reputation in a smaller ecosystem like Europe, getting local embassador and then penetrate bigger market. Language is not the biggest challenge here especially in IT project.
The genuine fits you will find only personally and they need to share your vision first before even speaking about working together. Conference networking events with same interest and then Join some San Francisco networking startups event like Brella. Those guys are strong in the area. Let me know if you need some genuine contacts.

SaaS model are pretty interesting if you consider to give part of your source code. Referring to the risks i would list you some more important one, focused and at the point:
- Assumed your publicly traded company is vers skilled the most users will find it more difficult and less appealing to work with.
- It makes sense for you to use proprietary parts if you can do it in specialist fields maybe.
- If with this decision you are technically giving less Support but more focus that's should be an advantage. Meaning decreasing direct your operational costs
- Cloud software is slightly different than conventional software. As a general rule, you don't get access to the source code, even if the hosted software is built entirely on open source software. That may not make the software proprietary, strictly speaking, but it doesn't give you all the benefits of open source. In that sense, the benefits of using the "pay for what you use" software as a service model may outweigh the disadvantage of not having access to the source code (http://www.cio.com/).

If is not enough get a local lawyer to help you out. Let me know if you need more.

I would differentiate directly with your only 10 competitors. Try to create momentum and spreading the voice. At the end of the day are the connection that matters and how you penetrate faster your target market/industry. If you completely lose the passion about your idea and you don't feel any shared dream of your vision that you want to be part of then leave. But don't multitask businesses, just focus and give you deadlines. Just text me if you need more

depending you target education application (medtech, mechtech, early stage....) and age i would consider for example Gamar/Rovio/ThingLink (angry births guys) and for other Alchemy/discoveryVR.
For resources i would recommend FBdesign,VRTO,github if you code .Let me know if you need more

The only quantitate criteria for our recruiters in an engineering company is to get s""t done: mainly how long you get the right fit in the position and if those hired people are quality with their meeting milestones. Remember to target quality and not quantity. Hope i gave you something different than other.

If you would search me the more effective way is a linked-in message or something telling me that you are interested in how i work and would like to share some of your product information. A BDM should share a passion and that need to aligned with your product. Then you go and asking a full commission BM. I mean, you can always give some guarantee but remember to filter a lot. I would find BD with engineering background with Sales expirience. As I am BDM i would like to be approached like that. Happy to help with some other contact globally

what i would do if i were you in a list :
- asap targeting your end-user that could be transit people like foreigners within meetups or interested in events or wework spaces e.g.
-digital media is the key: get a 10 min coffee and network about why you are differentiating yourself.
- and sample stuff like no others. Go to NYC and create a meetup or find embassadors and pay them a commission for example.