What are the best visa options for starting a business and training Virtual Assistants in Thailand?

I want to start this off by saying my goal is to do things the PROPER, legal way.

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The background......We would like to come to Thailand (possibly with a technical advisor) and train a "Virtual Assistant" for our American company.

The training is very complex/technical and would take between 60-90 days full time.

Our initial thinking is that following the training, the employee would be working remotely, as VA's all over the world do. They would invoice the company for work done as agreed when the position starts. There is a possibility (even a likelihood) to hire and train other VA's if this first one works out.

So here are the Visa questions.... The plan was (for me) to get some kind of thai retirement visa so that I can spend a few months every year without having to continuously deal with making Visa runs, going for extensions etc. Lets say 60 days, twice a year.

1.) Would we be better off starting a Thai company? Would this give me the same benefit of coming in and out of Thailand without issues and hiring these VA's directly.

2.) Would my partner and/or technical advisor also be able to attain needed visas like this? Particularly the technical advisor, so that he can come and do training as needed even if it takes a few weeks at a time.) How many people can have work Visas attached to a foreign owned company.

We are SPECIFICALLY choosing Thailand, even though there are available VA's in other parts of the world, as it is a way to "give back" to the thai economy. But it still needs to make sense both from a personal and a business sense.

Are there any experts in this group that can speak to how to do things legally/properly?