I hate Loopio. And RFPIO. And all legacy RFP automation solutions out there.

You probably do too. Unless you work at a large enterprise. If you’re a Sales Engineer (“SE”) at a startup, Loopio is probably the bane of your existence.

Here are 4 reasons why that’s the case:

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1. Answer Libraries Are Broken

The root of all problems with Loopio is the “answer library”—the very heart of Loopio.

An answer library is a curated and, hypothetically, clean set of answers to common RFP questions that you can use to fill a new RFP. 

In theory, it’s a great idea. Who doesn’t like a clean set of answers you can use over and over again? In practice, it’s bonkers.

First, it takes a very long time to build a clean answer library. Someone spends weeks collecting and cataloging answers, which means you can’t just sign up for Loopio and start filling RFPs. You first go on a separate quest to build the answer library.

Second, the library goes stale the moment you stop building it. Your product is constantly evolving. If you work at a startup, your engineers are shipping daily. No one has the time to update the library. So, you second guess each answer.

Third, the library is never comprehensive. If populating it takes weeks, chances are, people cut corners to get it up and running. As a result, anywhere from 30%–50% of questions in an RFP go unanswered, which defeats RFP automation’s whole point.

Lastly, answer libraries are expensive. If it’s garbage in, garbage out, someone plays knowledge cop to maintain quality. This turns into a part-time job, with some companies even hiring Proposal Writers whose sole job is to maintain the library and answer RFPs.

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2. It Ignores Tribal Knowledge

Most sales teams have documented knowledge, spread across sales enablement tools, Google Drive, Notion, and Zendesk. But, almost no team is ever happy with their documentation.

Luckily, every sales team has a ton of “tribal knowledge”—stuff people share in Slack, on sales calls, or internal meetings. The scale of tribal knowledge dwarfs documented knowledge.

Loopio, RFPIO, and other legacy RFP automation solutions connect to some documented knowledge bases.

But, none of them work with tribal knowledge bases.

That’s because their core artifact is an answer library—full of clean, verified information—so they can’t let in the messiness of Slack threads, Gong calls, or internal meeting transcripts.

And that exacerbates problems of freshness and accuracy.

You see, tribal knowledge on Slack is the bleeding edge. It’s where product & engineering share the latest enhancements, and work with pre-sales teams to solve customer problems. This solves for freshness.

And sales calls solve the problem of accuracy. If your co-founder, best SE, or Customer Success Manager (“CSM”) handles objections or answers a technical question on a sales call, their talk track deserves more weight than what sits in an old answer library.

Legacy RFP tools like Loopio deliver worse answers with less coverage.

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3. Import / Export Dance Is a Time Sink

Even if you have a clean answer library, you wrestle with the peculiarities of Loopio’s UX. Specifically, you import your RFP into Loopio, fill it inside their platform, and then export it back in the original format that your customer sent. This import / export logic is lossy. As a result, you spend a decent amount of time fixing formatting issues introduced in your finished RFP by these legacy tools.

For an SE working at a startup, this is a headache.

You live in Google Sheets or Google Docs, not Loopio. You know how to use them, you even have keyboard shortcuts. You can do any type of formatting using these tools. So, learning to use Loopio’s UX and formatting is a pain. It would be so much easier if you could answer RFPs without leaving Google Sheets or Docs.

Now, why do these legacy RFP automation solutions LOVE bringing you into their platform?

It’s because they’re built for enterprises, not startups. Enterprises hire dedicated proposal teams. These teams need custom reporting and collaboration tools. At startups, these reports or metrics don’t matter. All you want is an easy way to answer RFPs.

Dealing with import / export is pure friction.

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4. It’s a Single-Purpose Tool

This one drives me nuts.

Answering RFPs is just one use case of a good knowledge base. You want to turn it into AI agents that:

• sales team uses in Slack to access knowledge
• CS team uses for live call help
• support team uses to automatically answer support tickets
• customers use for in-product help

Legacy RFP automation tools focus only on answering RFPs. That means you can't reuse all that effort across other use cases of knowledge in your company.

So, the juice ain’t worth the squeeze.

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Is There a Better Way?

We built HeySam to provide a better way.
Sam has no answer library.

It ingests documented knowledge from your docs, Zendesk, Google Drive, past RFPs, Notion, even YouTube. 

It adds “tribal knowledge” by mining Slack threads and sales calls.

This training takes just one day. So, you could fill your first RFP within 24 hours of signing up—no lengthy onboarding necessary.

What’s more, you can use it directly inside Google Sheets & Docs to fill RFPs. There’s no custom UI to learn, no import / export magic. Just the same old Google Sheets & Docs that you’re familiar with.

And lastly, Sam builds AI agents on top of this knowledge lake, custom for different use cases:

• A Slackbot to conveniently access information
• A Zoombot to support your team on live calls
• And an “Ask AI” bot you can embed on your docs portal that helps customers self-serve their questions.

Here’s a quick look at how you can fill an RFP with Sam:

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Conclusion

If you work at an enterprise with a team of proposal writers whose sole job is to answer RFPs, Loopio, RFPIO, and other legacy solutions make perfect sense.

But, for everyone else, these are dated, bloated solutions that we can finally bypass with AI.

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FAQs

Why do RFP automation tools like Loopio fail for startups?

Loopio and similar legacy RFP tools fail at startups for four main reasons: (1) Building and maintaining their answer libraries takes weeks and becomes a full-time job, (2) they can't access "tribal knowledge" from Slack and sales calls where your best information lives, (3) their import/export workflow forces you out of Google Docs/Sheets and wastes time on formatting fixes, and (4) all that effort only helps with RFPs—you can't reuse the knowledge for other use cases like sales enablement or customer support.

How long does it take to set up an RFP automation tool?

Traditional RFP tools like Loopio require weeks of setup time. Someone has to spend weeks collecting, cataloging, and organizing answers to build the answer library before you can even start filling RFPs. Modern AI-powered alternatives like Sam take just one day to train and let you fill your first RFP within 24 hours of signing up.

What is an answer library in RFP tools and why is it problematic?

An answer library is a curated database of pre-written responses to common RFP questions. While this sounds efficient, answer libraries create major problems: they go stale immediately as your product evolves, they're never comprehensive (leaving 30-50% of questions unanswered), they're expensive to maintain, and they can't incorporate "tribal knowledge" from Slack threads or sales calls where your freshest and most accurate information lives.

Can you use RFP automation tools directly in Google Docs or Google Sheets?

Most legacy RFP tools like Loopio and RFPIO require you to import RFPs into their platform, fill them out there, then export back to the customer's format—often with formatting issues. AI-powered tools like Sam work directly inside Google Sheets and Google Docs, so you can answer RFPs without leaving the tools you already use daily.

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