← Back to blog
How Tech Teams and Geek Squads Use SquadPicks to Discuss Products, Tools & GitHub Projects

Every dev team, Telegram group, and tech-curious friend circle has the same problem: someone drops a great GitHub repo or Product Hunt launch in the chat, everyone says "interesting!", and then it's buried under 40 messages before anyone tries it.

SquadPicks now has a dedicated Tech pick type — built exactly for this. Drop a Product Hunt link, a GitHub repo, a TechCrunch article, or a new tool you want your squad to evaluate. Everyone votes on whether they want to try it, have already used it, or aren't interested. Decisions get made.

The problem with tech links in group chats

Tech folk are some of the worst offenders when it comes to link-dropping without follow-through. In any active dev group chat you'll find:

The links aren't the problem — the lack of a decision mechanism is. SquadPicks solves this by turning any link into a vote card that persists and accumulates squad opinion over time.

What you can add as a Tech pick

SquadPicks automatically detects Tech-type links from:

💡 Any link can be turned into a Tech pick — paste the URL and use the type picker to mark it as Tech. Great for Notion docs, internal tools, newsletters, or anything else your squad evaluates.

How squads actually use it

The startup team evaluating tools

Rahul's five-person startup in Bangalore has a SquadPicks group for internal tools research. Every time someone finds a new project management tool, AI writing assistant, or developer productivity app, they add it as a Tech pick. The team votes: "Tried it / Want to try / Not for me." At their Monday standup, they review picks that everyone wants to try and actually decide whether to adopt something.

💻
Linear — Project tracking for modern teams Product Hunt · Tool · Team productivity
4 want to try

The tech friend group that shares everything

Ananya's college friends group — all engineers at different companies — use SquadPicks to share anything tech-interesting they come across in the week. GitHub repos, newsletter articles, new frameworks. The group picks with the most "want" votes become the topic for their Friday evening call. The ones that everyone skips get quietly buried without inbox-polluting threads.

💻
bun — JavaScript runtime 10x faster than Node GitHub · oven-sh/bun · 70k stars
Group ok ✓

Tech + the Telegram bot

If your squad already communicates on Telegram, the SquadPicks bot works seamlessly. Paste a GitHub URL or Product Hunt link in your group — the bot detects it as Tech, creates a vote card, and everyone can tap to vote without leaving the chat.

The bot also lets you change the type of any pick. If you paste a general article and want it categorised as Tech, tap Change Type on the pick card and select 💻 Tech from the picker.

Why we added Tech as a pick type

SquadPicks was built for friend squads to make group decisions about what to watch, eat, or do. But we started seeing teams use it to discuss tools and products. The "want to try / not for me" vote structure maps perfectly onto tool evaluation. "Tried it" = you've used it and can report back. "Want to try" = interested, put it on the radar. "Not for me" = not relevant to your work.

We made it a first-class type so the experience is intentional — not a hack. Tech picks get the right emoji, the right vote labels, and automatic detection for the major tech link sources.

🚀 Try it: Add @SquadPicksBot to your team's Telegram group, or sign up at squadpicks.io. Drop a GitHub repo or Product Hunt link and watch it become a vote card.

Other types your team might use

While Tech is the newest type, existing squads use SquadPicks for much more:

One bot, one web app, every kind of decision. That's SquadPicks.