I've spent the last year building and running a SaaS almost entirely on AI-generated output — launch copy, code reviews, cold outreach, changelogs, support replies. Along the way I've written, tested, and thrown away something like 400+ prompts. About half of them are now in a curated pack I sell. The other half were just bad.
This post isn't a sales pitch. It's the actual lessons from testing hundreds of prompts: why most of them fail, what a good one looks like, and how to test them systematically instead of vibes-checking. If it's useful, I link to the paid pack at the very end. If it's not, you still walk away with three prompts you can use today.
1. Why most AI prompts fail
Almost every bad prompt I've written fails for one of three reasons. They're all fixable.
Failure 1: Vague instructions
