Honestly it took me probably 14 hours whaling on NA PvP to get my 5000 gold for a schooner, while that is a long time it also means that my schooner as a solo player is immensely more valuable compared to my schooner before. I have a level 42 schooner with 150% dmg cannons currently so by no means is it impossible to scale up in this game as a small company but it does take quite a bit of work to start this game considering 14 hours to start doing anything meaningful not to mention the probably 6hours getting a few levels and supplies to make your sloop.
Also I'm pretty sure they are going to make earning gold easier in the future which may help alleviate this pain the small companies have currently cause remember this game has died a few deaths and I think they canned the dev team and brought in a new one that is completely revamping the game cause it still is in EARLY ACCESS.
You don't like getting a new map with bugged resources every other season? who woulda thunk it.