Yes, just 7 coins. And yes, the idea is that the player characters starts the game with nothing (or close to nothing), at level zero.
The objective is creating a new character in less than 5 minutes and start playing right away.
This also includes shopping in game once you have the funds - instead of spending 10-30 minutes preparing your inventory before it even starts.
You can always decide to multiply the money by 10 and starting the game at level 1 - but then, character creation become a 20-60 minutes job again.