Riding Unicorns · 2026-05-20 · 26 min
Steve Domin, Founder & CEO of Duffel, the company rebuilding the infrastructure layer of the global travel industry. Duffel is taking on one of the most complex and outdated sectors, creating modern, developer-first APIs for flights, hotels, and more. Backed by investors including Index Ventures and Benchmark, the company has raised over $50M to transform how travel is bought and sold. Steve shares the journey of building Duffel from scratch, including: Why the travel industry is fundamentally broken The insight that led to Duffel’s API-first approach Building deep supply-side integrations with airlines and incumbents Navigating COVID when travel demand dropped to zero The painful reality of scaling, resetting, and rebuilding product-market fit Where long-term defensibility comes from in complex infrastructure businesses We also explore: What makes companies like GoCardless “talent factories” How AI is changing how modern engineering teams are built The future of smaller, highly efficient companies Steve’s view on the next generation of AI-native products This is a masterclass in persistence, infrastructure thinking, and building through uncertainty.
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