I've been doing exactly this transition for the last couple of months -- transitioning from consulting to running a business and working on services (basically,

I've been doing exactly this transition for the last couple of months -- transitioning from consulting to running a business and working on services (basically, a startup, just under my company's brand). For me, trying to schedule "startup time" didn't work. There was always too much immediate consulting-type work to take care of. So about a year ago I ran a Craigslist ad, spent a day wading through applications and making phone calls, and found someone that was willing to work on a part-time, on-call basis, for good wages but less than my consulting fees. A year later, I've got a couple of people that I work with now -- sort-of employees-on-call -- and I was just able to take my first real vacation in 2.5 years. Everything was handled fine while I was unreachable. So now I've got plenty of time to work on software. So, one solution is to run your consulting like a business for a while, grow it, get some contract help, stabilize it, and then manage it part-time.