When entrepreneur Rebekah Campbell was trying to get her new business off the ground, she didn't know how to organise a PowerPoint presentation, let alone convince investors to give her money.
While she had already set up a music management business using her own money, Ms Campbell was totally unprepared when it came to asking strangers to invest in her next venture - a social media app called Posse.
Without investors, there would be no tech staff and no Posse.
"I really had no idea at all," she recalls.
"I remember the night before my first pitch to investors calling my friend and saying, `how do you use this PowerPoint thing?'
"I think I must have done almost 1,000 pitches. It was about a year and a half before I raised my first round and there were so many nos in that process."
Ms Campbell credits a mix of passion, perseverance and a willingness to learn from the countless knockbacks from investors that eventually enabled her to raise $10 million for Posse, which connects consumers with shops, bars and restaurants.
Her bumpy journey down the capital raising road is not unusual but one that entrepreneurial support group Rare Birds hopes to make a bit smoother for businesswomen.
The group has launched a funding platform connecting entrepreneurs with investors and venture capitalists.
Entrepreneurs are given eight steps to follow to prepare them to face potential investors.
The program is aimed at businesses which have grown from the startup phase and have received initial seed funding but need more to grow.
Rare Birds has lined up four investors - Springboard Enterprises, Scale Investors, Impact Investment Fund and Right Click Capital - to match with entrepreneurs and hopes to expand the stable to about 12.
Rare Birds founder and serial entrepreneur Jo Burston says capital raising can be "quite frightening" for people setting up their own business.
After securing seed funding of $200,000 for her Job Capital recruitment company in 2006 it began to enjoy phenomenal growth and investors wanted to throw money at her.
"I absolutely had no idea what I was doing," she said.
"I was getting phone calls and emails from the United States and the UK from venture capitalists offering me money to grow my company.
"I deleted emails and avoided phone calls because I didn't know what to do."
Ms Burston said women are often reluctant to ask investors for money. Some think they're businesses aren't big enough while others worry they're not ready to expand.
"But if you've not got good cash, how are you going to survive?" she says.
Ms Campbell, who counts Google Maps and Westpac among her investors, advises women to think of themselves as a "force of nature" when approaching investors.
"You have got to get really, really tough. You're going to get a lot of nos.
"You have to get a picture in your mind of being this unstoppable force and be willing to keep at it."
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