You fuel pressure regulator is probably bad. It is letting the fuel drain back into the tank from the fuel rail. The fuel pressure reg. is on top of the fuel pump assembly in the tank. It is best to just replace the whole fuel pump assembly. Cycling the key a few times gets the primes the fuel pump and gets it back up to the fuel rail. That's why it starts like normal if you cycle the key a few times before you crank it over.