1) With just a commercial license, you can do a variety of non-passenger businesses with minimal insurance (photography, pipeline patrol, banner towing, cargo, mail).
If you want to carry passengers, especially on scheduled flights, then it gets complicated as you're really starting an airline as far as the FAA sees it.
2) You can fly in the early morning if you're new to turbulence.
I got most of my ratings in Hawaii, and we'd tell new students to show up at 8 am or 9 am if that was an issue for the first couple of flights.
In your 1) you mentioned cargo, so just to clarify, you can fly cargo for somebody, i.e. not in your own airplane. In general, flying and operating your airplane for any kind of compensation is what the FAA calls 'holding out' and just a commercial rating is not enough for it (more precisely, you need other, nonflying related qualifications for that, like a 135 certificate).
On 2), my experience has been that most students get airsick because of anxiety (I guess it is associated with them fixing their gaze inside the airplane) and is usually not an issue once they gain confidence. Before that, flying early is great advice.
If you want to carry passengers, especially on scheduled flights, then it gets complicated as you're really starting an airline as far as the FAA sees it.
2) You can fly in the early morning if you're new to turbulence.
I got most of my ratings in Hawaii, and we'd tell new students to show up at 8 am or 9 am if that was an issue for the first couple of flights.