How to do proper due diligence workshops

Lately, I've engaged in conversations with several founders about their experiences with VCs due diligence during fundraising.
 
Although I don't have a large enough sample size to publish official statistics, the trends are concerning. In half of the cases, VCs were broadly unprepared, and in another 20%, they had questions but lacked a structured agenda. This is something you would rarely / never see in private equity, where investors tend to be more disciplined - perhaps due to the size of their investments, the maturity of the companies or the stakes involved.
 
Those due diligence "workshops" are not just opportunities to ask questions to expedite your work. They should be used to evaluate the organization thoroughly.
 
For example, in a go-to-market session, I consistently spend time on the sales organization, customer journey (including sales cycle, competitive landscape, and renewals), strategy (like 'land and expand'), historical performance of sales and marketing, and a detailed analysis of the pipeline. As I focus on early-stage/early-growth companies, most likely the management won’t have compelling answers for all those questions - so what am I trying to achieve here? Well I am trying to answer 2 questions
 
1. Whether GTM is a competitive advantage in itself.
2. If increased resources would lead to significantly accelerated growth (i.e., if new ARR would increase proportionally with additional sales and marketing investments)
 
And those 2 questions actually help me assess broader aspects such as:
- is the org structure optimal (recruitment, retention, comp/quotas,...) or could it be more effective?
- is the S&M budget allocated efficiently?
- performance of previous GTM initiatives and the leadership's response.
- can the current leadership team execute?
 
I urge VCs to remain "thesis-driven" and avoid falling into analysis paralysis like some PE firms. However, it's crucial not to shortcut the process or treat working sessions as mere fact-finding missions. Come prepared and conduct thorough, meaningful due diligence.