You are one of the founders of Connecta, a company that became very successful during the happy 90s. In what way do the conditions for building a company differ then and today?

Not so much really – it's probably the same axioms that applied then as now, possibly with the difference that the venture capital market is significantly more developed nowadays. Note that we started without a single penny in venture capital.
For me, our business idea was absolutely important, but even more important was to start by surrounding yourself with a small core team of super-talented employees, coupled with carefully trying to attract the "right" customers. The business idea can always be tweaked along the way together with the team and the customer.
I can say without hesitation that the ingredients just mentioned were our absolutely most important success factors, so without that combination, it would never have turned out as well as it did. In summary: if I were to start a company today, I would think in exactly the same way now as then.

What major challenges do you help your entrepreneurs with as a coach and advisor? What does what you write in your LinkedIn profile mean in practice: "-I coach mainly entrepreneurs in every aspect of being successful and grow their business beyond their own comfort zone"?

I mainly help entrepreneurs who have come a bit along the path – that is, those who have passed the start-up phase. They have then, in other words, figured out for themselves what the customer wants to buy. I come in when they are to take the next step – by, for example, broadening the range, finding new areas of use, new markets, or simply hesitating about what the next step should be. I must also be honest in saying that I only spend time and energy on entrepreneurs in companies that have decent conditions to succeed. Life is too short to try to teach roosters and hens to fly really far.

What advice would you like to send to an entrepreneur who has just started a company in 2020?

As I wrote above: "the business idea is absolutely important, but even more important is to start by surrounding yourself with a small core team of super-talented employees and/or a partner, coupled with carefully trying to attract the "right" customers. The business idea can always be tweaked along the way together with the team and the customer. If the company is to develop a product or service that will require external capital, the entrepreneur should try to develop as much as possible self-financed, coupled with getting a paying satisfied customer before they spend time and resources on attracting external investors. If not, there is a great risk that the entrepreneur will not be able to retain so much ownership of their brainchild.