You can start a software business in Austria with just a laptop and get health insurance for 32€/month (total social security payments if you don't make profits are about 150€/month). Fees for registering a company are waived/reduced for founders. I had nowhere near $20000 when I started.

Sure, if you want to open a capital intensive business like a restaurant, you'll need more money. But that's the same everywhere.

It's somewhat more difficult for founding a limited liability company there, where the capital requirements are much higher than in most other countries (Eur 35K).

Yeah, that's why most founders don't actually register a GmbH. Many small businesses are sole proprietors, even businesses with a few employees.

Isn't it possible to fund a "mini" GmbH with only 10.000€ and build up to the 35.000€ over a span of a couple of years or something? I think I remember something like that being the case.

In my opinion the capital requirements are really not the biggest hurdle. If you start a GmbH, you have so many extra accounting requirements and everything gets more complicated. You also pay a lot more taxes in most cases. So it's something that many people try to avoid.