The Rise and Quiet Fall of OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com

Ever wondered what happened to OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com, that quirky little site designed to help everyday users get the most out of ChatGPT? If you stumbled across it in 2023, you probably remember its promise: "AI prompts made for ordinary people." It had a charming simplicity, a crowd-sourced prompt library, and even free mini-courses. But by 2025, the site had vanished—no fanfare, no public goodbye. Just... gone.

So what happened? Why did this tool disappear despite getting user love early on?

Short answer? Money.
Long answer? A cocktail of wild competition, unclear monetization, and the tough reality of running an AI tool in a saturated space. Let’s dive in.

What Was OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com?

OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com was exactly what the name promised: a curated collection of AI prompts built with everyday users in mind.

Launch date: January 2023
Founder: Identified only as Felix, as seen on Product Hunt and his personal website.

The platform offered:

• A searchable prompt database tailored for ChatGPT.
• Mini-courses aimed at helping users improve conversation skills with AI.
• Community elements like comments, upvotes, and shared submissions.

It was positioned as an antidote to “prompt overload” — a phenomenon where AI users face too many low-quality prompt options with little guidance. Unlike more technical tools catering to AI developers or artists, OrdinaryPeoplePrompts leaned accessible, friendly, and free — or at least mostly free.

For a time, that worked. It was positively received on Product Hunt and niche AI review sites like Future Gaze. But by 2025, the dream had faded.

Why Did OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com Fail?

Short Answer:

It likely couldn’t generate enough revenue to justify the time and costs of keeping it running in a competitive, oversaturated AI market.

Long Answer: Let’s break it down into the key factors:

1. 🚫 Limited Market Fit & Scale

The idea was solid — bridge the gap between complex AI tools and regular users. But the execution may have lacked the depth needed for long-term retention. Its simplicity, while appealing at first, didn’t scale well in a landscape where AI tools evolve fast and users want increasingly advanced capabilities.

Plus, without account logins, user profiles, or a feedback loop beyond comments, it lacked stickiness — the kind that keeps users coming back.

2. 💵 No Clear Monetization Strategy

There’s no evidence of a paid model or effective monetization strategy. It marketed itself as free for basic use, with no mention of premium features or creator revenue-sharing.

That might have delighted users — until the bills came due. Whether it was hosting, development time, or marketing, expenses add up. With no revenue engine, sustainability was a pipe dream.

3. ⚔️ Fierce Competitors Took the Spotlight

By the time OrdinaryPeoplePrompts launched:

• PromptBase was already offering a paid marketplace, monetizing prompt creation and attracting professional AI creators.
• PromptHero specialized in AI-generated art prompts, hosting millions of searchable examples — a monster in both content and users.

These platforms had clear use cases, robust marketplaces, and revenue-sharing features that benefited both the platforms and their communities. OrdinaryPeoplePrompts simply couldn’t compete at that level of complexity and funding.

4. 👤 Solo Founder, Limited Resources

Everything points to this being a solo or very small team project — run by Felix, whose personal website now makes no mention of the project.

No visible hiring, fundraising, partnerships, or press. A great idea can only go so far without a team or budget to keep it growing, let alone maintain basic operations.

5. 📉 Low Customer Retention & Community Engagement

While it earned praise for usability early on, the lack of regular content updates, social media presence, or new features likely led to waning interest. With no strong community to fuel growth or feedback, momentum slowed, and users drifted elsewhere.

6. 🕰️ Timing: The "Prompt Craze" Plateaued

In early 2023, everyone was into prompt engineering. By 2024, it became clear most casual users either graduated to more advanced tools or used search engines and Reddit to find what they needed. The novelty of a prompt-sharing platform may have worn off, especially when giants like OpenAI started offering prompt templates within ChatGPT itself.

Competitors That Survived – And Why

Let’s contrast OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com with PromptBase — a platform that’s not only alive but thriving.

PromptBase succeeded because:

• It let creators sell prompts, incentivizing quality content.
• It catered to professionals, offering practicality and ROI.
• It scaled quickly and charged transaction fees, creating a cash flow system that worked.
• It positioned itself as a marketplace, not just a directory.

Meanwhile, OrdinaryPeoplePrompts stayed too simple, too vague in its value proposition, and too quiet in its community-building.

Think Vine vs. TikTok: both were about short videos. But one scaled and monetized while the other… disappeared.

Lessons Learned: What OrdinaryPeoplePrompts Teaches Us

Even charming, well-intentioned products can fail if:

• There’s no viable business or monetization model.
• The user base isn’t large or loyal enough to sustain interest.
• Competitors out-innovate and out-market you.
• You build alone in an ecosystem that rewards collaboration, funding, and growth.

That said, OrdinaryPeoplePrompts wasn’t a failure in spirit. For a brief time, it gave normal people a clearer on-ramp to AI tools — and that’s no small thing.

Its quiet disappearance is perhaps a fitting end for a platform built on humility, simplicity, and utility — but without the scaffolding to become more.

FAQs About OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com

Who founded OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com?
The founder is known simply as Felix. His full name and background are not publicly documented, though he has a personal site at Felix Orion.

When did OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com launch?
It debuted in January 2023, with its first major appearance on Product Hunt.

When did OrdinaryPeoplePrompts shut down?
While there was no formal statement, signs indicate it became inactive sometime after mid-2023. As of March 2025, it is no longer accessible and appears defunct.

How much funding did OrdinaryPeoplePrompts raise?
There are no public records of any venture or seed funding. It seems to have been a solo or bootstrapped project.

Why did OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com fail?
The likeliest cause was financial unsustainability due to lack of monetization, competition from better-funded alternatives, and a limited user base.

Is the website still available?
The domain still exists but is non-functional as of early 2025.

Final Thoughts

OrdinaryPeoplePrompts.com may have disappeared quietly, but its mission — making AI more approachable — remains crucial in today’s tech world. Its short life is a stark reminder that even good ideas and initial buzz aren’t enough without a business model, community engagement, or adaptive strategy.

So next time you come across an exciting new AI tool, remember: what seems ordinary today might vanish tomorrow unless it learns to scale, engage, and sustain itself.

💡 Until then, the prompt lives on — just maybe from a different website.