We've both been on the wrong end of a lost contract. Not because we lacked capability — but because our proposal didn't communicate it. The technical approach was solid. The past performance was relevant. The price was competitive. But the proposal read like it was assembled by committee, because it was.
That experience — watching great teams lose contracts to competitors who simply presented better — is why we built IntentBid.
The real problem isn't writing speed
Most AI proposal tools focus on speed: "Generate a proposal in minutes." Speed is nice. But speed without strategy just means you produce mediocre proposals faster.
The real problem is threefold:
What we wanted to exist
We wanted a system that does what the best capture teams do — but systematically:
- Start with a bid/no-bid decision — Score every opportunity against your actual capabilities before spending a dollar on proposal development
- Extract requirements automatically — Pull evaluation criteria, compliance requirements, and key personnel needs directly from the RFP document
- Apply institutional knowledge — Every proposal draws from a verified knowledge base of your past performance, case studies, certifications, and team qualifications
- Generate strategic sections, not filler — Each section is built from win themes specific to this opportunity, backed by evidence selected for relevance to this evaluator
Here's what that looks like in practice. For a recent cloud migration RFP, IntentBid generated an executive summary opening that referenced the specific agency's legacy environment, cited a directly relevant past performance (340 servers migrated for a comparable federal agency), and quantified the outcome ($3.2M in annual savings, 42% reduction in operating costs) — all pulled automatically from the company's evidence library. No copy-paste. No hunting through old proposals.
Built for the companies that need it most
Enterprise firms with 50-person capture teams already have process. They have Shipley. They have color team reviews. They have dedicated writers.
But the 10-to-200-person firm? They're competing for the same contracts with a fraction of the resources. Their subject matter experts are also their proposal writers. Their competitive intelligence lives in a shared drive somewhere. Their win themes change from proposal to proposal because there's no system to enforce consistency.
The federal government awards roughly 25% of all contract dollars to small businesses — that's over $178 billion in FY2024 alone, according to the SBA. Programs like 8(a), SDVOSB, WOSB, and HUBZone set-asides exist specifically to create opportunities for these firms. But a set-aside doesn't write your proposal for you.
IntentBid gives these firms the proposal capability of a company ten times their size. That's the mission.
Where we are today
IntentBid is live and processing real proposals. The platform includes automated RFP extraction, bid/no-bid scoring with procurement intelligence, 10-section proposal generation backed by your company context, and export to DOCX, PDF, and PPTX for color team reviews.
We're working closely with initial customers to refine the system and build what matters most. If you're tired of watching proposals go out the door knowing they could be better — we'd love to talk.