You hire someone for that. What is the difference with hiring tax people and lawyers in the US. It amazes me why anyone would do this themselves. Or spend time on it themselves. Even a poor startup has 1000E to fix this. Well, it depends what you want to start; if it is a tire burning facility it will be more expensive but the main takeaway is: you just don't attempt this yourself. I outsource and have outsourced for decades, all interaction with the state and the eu; it is cheap and I don't spend time.

For software companies, there are hardly any barriers. Gdpr and labor laws depending on country if you contract people. For both, you get someone else to do it. There are companies who do this for a monthly fee.

Good luck opening a bank account

I tried opening one in the US. That was not fun. What is the difference? As a Dutch person I had one in PT in 30 minutes. As a Dutch person opening in the US, AU and HK, it was a hell. What is the difference? If you are from those places, they won't know what you mean as it will be easy for this. As a Dutch person, you find it hard to get an account in the EU? Maybe if your info fails KYC, but otherwise it is trivial.

It’s only trivial as long as you have a single entity. Try adding a foundation, having foreign shareholders, different layers.

I’ve seen and heard of 9+ months, and a ton of paperwork

And that is not true in the US? I don't know but it takes a lot of effort in countries we did it outside of the EU. US banks are generally more gung ho on money laundering prevention and such so it seems hard to believe complexity will narrow the gap.