Darryl Han is the Chief of Staff of Fly Fairly, a travel platform that allows travelers to book over 650+ airlines with over 100+ flexible payment options, including Buy Now, Pay Later, cryptocurrency, and e-wallets.

Darryl was previously the co-founder of LFG, a social discovery engine for curated and personalized travel recommendations, which was recently acquired by Fly Fairly. The mission is to build the world's most flexible OTA for flights, payments, and rewards.

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👋🏼  How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

As Chief of Staff at Fly Fairly, I bridge our leadership team and departments to ensure strategic initiatives get executed. I jump between operations, partnerships, and marketing to keep things moving. 

Ultimately, it comes down to three things: protecting our culture as we scale, building a product we love and are proud of, and driving relentless but sustainable growth.

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🧐  What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I started my career as a mining engineer (yep, hard hats, hi-vis, and all). I've detonated explosives and supervised massive haulage operations during night shifts. 

I moved to Singapore for a Master's in Management of Technology, which took four years to complete because I took a leave of absence to build two startups in between.

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‍🏆  What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Founding my own startup LFG, and seeing it through to our recent acquisition by Fly Fairly. When things got tough, it was tempting to give up, but we believed in our vision. 

And thankfully, Fly Fairly saw the same potential. The synergies clicked immediately, and now we're jointly building the world's most flexible OTA for flights, payments, and rewards.

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🔍  What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?

The evolution of search. 

We're seeing social commerce in fashion and travel leverage social discovery for direct bookings and purchases, bypassing the traditional search landscape to unlock new channels for organic reach and authentic discovery. 

Plus, AI's impact on SEO, i.e. how do you rank in ChatGPT or Perplexity outputs? It's a whole new game.

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💼  What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry? 

Avoid what YC calls "tarpit ideas". 

Everyone tries to build an AI travel planner at some point. Be crystal clear about your unique value and monetization strategy from day one.

Just because someone sees an amazing recommendation for crab curry in Bangkok doesn't mean they're booking a flight to Thailand immediately.

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🗣  What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours? 

To be honest: travel (how surprising!). It's why I'm in this industry. As a remote worker, I live and breathe it. 

My passion for sharing incredible experiences drove me to start LFG and join Fly Fairly. I'm on a personal mission to give everyone access to travel freedom and flexibility.

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🎥  What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

Raiders of the Lost Ark (Indiana Jones, 1981). 

I can’t really get into TV series, but I absolutely love Breaking Bad.

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🍨  What's your go-to ice cream flavor?

Fior Di Latte at Licky Chan & The Poke Guy (Kuala Lumpur). 

It’s soy sauce ice cream, made with Malaysian fresh milk and topped with sweet soy sauce. Mild yet edgy at the same time.