Why your side project needs 'guest login'

Why I implemented anonymous authentication

I received some damming feedback on hacker news

So I took the advice onboard and added a continue as guest mode on LanguageMate.io

So now users can start speaking to their favourite language-learning companion in the magic 3 clicks

The kind commenter on hacker news wrote on Friday that the conversion funnel of

discover product -> try product -> sign up

is nearly always a better funnel than compared to what I had (account lockout)

discover product -> sign up -> try product

So I decided to let the product sell itself and let users find joy from using LanguageMate before making an account.

How you can implement the same

Firebase anonymous authentication is great for this as it allows the user to use the app as any other user because they get a user account and user id. This worked well with my current logged in status

What is even better, is that you can allow them to login with their chosen authentication method afterward and automatically link the accounts together so they do not lose any progress. And this process is also just as seamless

Just don't forget to make it tempting for users to make an account at some point!

I have made an account tempting by restricting translations and some other features to account access only.

What is more is that all the features are available to guest users but they don't work and instead trigger a modal asking them to sign in fully which also demonstrates the benefits for them so they get a taste and are more likely to convert

Will you implement anonymous authentication on your apps? Feedback on LanguageMate.io would be very welcome as well - ps. you don't need to make an account ;)