JOHN: This is my second time around, if you like, so -- What do they class it -- a serial entrepreneur. I started my first business in 1981, and we were reasonably successful and went for five years. It was a software development company. And we got involved in some financing overseas which fell through, and I wound up having to close the company down. So what I did was I shut the company down and paid off all the debts myself rather than declare bankruptcy or wind up owing anybody--you know, having people out of pocket because I still wanted to live in Perth. So you have to clear your name, get everything aboveboard and then come back from it.

HATTIE: (Voiceover) John's wife, Faye, remembers.

FAYE: Probably, too, you feel a little bit for your creditors and whatnot. So you don't really want to alienate anybody that doesn't need to be alienated because you might meet them down the track somewhere. So, you know, I mean, if it's a little bit of hard work and you get through it, yeah.

JOHN: So in 1986 I was married with a family, sold my house, sold half my furniture, had four children under the age of five. When I looked at my bank account after it was all done, I had $4.30. It was my total net assets.

FAYE: I think it was sad because the children were so small and I really thought, `Well, what am I going to do to help?' because I've got four little kids. And then I took in children and got money from that and we worked from there. So, yeah, we came through it and John got a good job and he worked his way through it and he came back up on top again. So we got there.

JOHN: I was fortunate enough that my name and reputation in the industry was very good. (Voiceover) So I was able to get quite a reasonable job, and you work your way back up again. And then, you know, you get to the same situation where now I'm getting offers to go to the Eastern states, I get offers of jobs in Singapore. What do you do? No, you want to stay in Perth still. So you start your own business again.

HATTIE: How long did it take you from that moment that you got the idea until you made money on that idea?

ERROL: It was about a half a decade, I guess. People used to ask me how the business was going, and I used to say that we had an enormous cash flow; in fact, it was an embarrassingly large cash flow. The only problem is it was all out.

JOHN: You learn by your mistakes, so the first business around, no planning, no budgets, no controls. You know, the expense is sometimes out of the window, varying cash flow. And that was always a problem. And so, you know, these mistakes, you have to learn by them, you have to experience them, I guess, sometimes.

HATTIE: You started a business because you wanted to stay in Perth.

JOHN: Yes.

HATTIE: And you failed in business... John: Before, yes.

HATTIE: ...in Perth.

JOHN: Yes.

HATTIE: But you didn't allow the failure to hurt anybody because you wanted to stay in Perth.

JOHN: That's right.

HATTIE: You invented a product, Virtual Office...

JOHN: Jointly with Errol, yes.

HATTIE: ...that makes it easy for people to do work anywhere...

JOHN: Yes.

HATTIE: ...because you want to stay in Perth.

JOHN: That's right.

HATTIE: You are one stubborn guy. Is that what it takes to make a business work?

JOHN: I think persistence, yeah. You've got to have a belief in what you want to achieve.

ERROL: We're a very small business, we're in a remote part of the world called Australia, down under, and we decided to target the whole planet. And our technology has helped us to do that.