Startups are a marathon, not a sprint. Long-term success requires you to pace yourself. It’s essential that you uncover the things that deplete your energy and what you need to replenish it. You need to find your recharge.

Monique Woodard of Cake Ventures, Marvin Liao of Diaspora Ventures, advisor Mike Sigal, Web Summit host Casey Lau and I recently met with startup founders across Scotland. The one topic we kept returning to? The fact that VC isn’t right for 99% of startups.

Founders get a lot of VC diligence requests during fundraising. Here are 6 examples of appropriate VC diligence requests and 6 examples that should set off your alarm bells.

I'm going to be blunt. Angel investors or VCs asking for advisory shares as a condition of investment is not okay. Full stop.

One question many startup founders have is whether or not they should pitch VCs who have invested in their competitors.

As a founder, one of the most powerful things you can have is a unique perspective, insight or opinion about a market.

The journey of a founder often feels like a series of trials of worthiness. And no experience embodies this more than fundraising.

Something happened over the last 20 years. America — the nation whose foundation was built on immigration — has itself became anti-immigration. The rest of the world has seen America's achilles heel and is in attack mode.

In our first meeting, I’m focused less on what a founder says and more concerned with how they say it.

It was 2012. My cofounder and I were huddled around a laptop pitching Brad Feld, the "final boss" in our quest to secure a term sheet from Foundry Group.

One of the most frustrating experiences for startup founders is to have multiple calls with a potential investor, only to hear…nothing. Why do VCs act like this?

The uncomfortable truth is that the majority of startup ideas are fundamentally not a fit for VCs. And it’s because of the size of the market that they’re going after.

Countless stories have been written about founders using FOMO to catalyze a fundraising process to stratospheric heights. What too many founders misunderstand is that FOMO only works when applied to a well-run fundraising process. It’s not a replacement for actual investor interest.

And it’s not something you can fake.