JQ did this in 2006 in about 5 months on it's own with no assistance from QF other than the leased A330s and it opened up 5-6 international ports within weeks of each other.
]JQ aren't the only carrier to succeed in short tine and get things right. So too did Australian Airlines (AO) in 2002 who had a small team of seconded people from Qantas who I believe knew what they were doing. From memory, AO served three points in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Bali and Singapore from the get-go without any (reported) hassles.
As an aside. it's easy to see/understand why a certain wonder-kid didn't get the top gig at Qantas!