IN 2002, two university mates funded a start-up with a $10,000 credit card.

During the early days of the company, founders Mike Cannon-Brookes and Scott Farquhar would often conduct business with overseas clients during house parties at a shared terrace in inner-Sydney.

You could be forgiven to think these circumstances were a recipe for disaster, but this wasn’t the case for the dynamic duo.

In fact, Mr Farquhar and Mr Cannon-Brookes are now the most successful tech entrepreneurs Australia has produced.

As the masterminds behind Atlassian — a suite of products that aim to achieve increased, streamlined productivity and communication — both guys are now billionaires.

Even more impressive is the fact Atlassian is valued at more than $7 billion and the company’s suite of software products has 50,000 global customers including the likes of NASA, Tesla, eBay, Facebook and Twitter.

Mr Cannon-Brookes said the company’s success comes from the fact the vast array of clients they have across a number of different sectors.

“We make and sell software products, packaged or sold online, to help people be more creative,” he toldGQ.

Mr Cannon-Brookes said the key to providing quality service was putting the focus on the team, instead of the individual.

“Go back 200 years and you could accomplish a lot as a single person, but if you look at how complicated the world is [now] ... things are accomplished by teams,” he said.

“People aren’t getting smarter or faster, actually all the bottlenecks are really about getting things out of my head and into yours, or sharing information or getting people on the same page and not duplicating work around an organisation.”

With technology companies dominating the current market, Mr Cannon-Brookes said there needed to be a larger push from Australia in the sector.

“Think about it — the majority of jobs are going to be involved in some form of technology in 20-25 years time, and if we’re not creating that technology in Australia, or creating some portion of it, we’re going to be buying it from overseas and it’ll have a bad flow-on effects for our economy. We have to innovate and be creative,” he said.

“Talent-wise we have great universities, we’re just not quite orienting them — encouraging people and showing where they can make business in this space.

“If those two start coming together, there’s no reason we shouldn’t be able to have a vibrant technology industry — and I suppose that’s what the goal is.”

To read more about the journey of the Atlassian boys and other innovators, pick up a copy of the May issue of GQ Australia, which goes on sale Thursday 28 April.