---
title: "Projects, work and press – Colin Armstrong"
description: "Colin Armstrong's side projects (heade.rs, Draftside, Council), his work at Paragraph, Mirror, Google and Coinbase, and his podcast and press appearances."
url: "https://armstr.ng/projects"
---

# Projects & Work

What I'm building on the side, where I've worked, and where I've talked about it.

## Projects

Small products & experiments I've built.

- [heade.rs](https://heade.rs): Domain and IP lookup with live routes and latency
- [Draftside](https://draftside.ai): Private writing editor with on-device AI
- [Council](https://council.armstr.ng): CLI that runs three AI models and synthesizes one answer

## Work

Since 2015. Selected roles where I worked on payments, anti-abuse, privacy, and systems that reached large numbers of people.

### Paragraph

Founder & CEO · Since 2022 · [paragraph.com](https://paragraph.com)

Paragraph is the media engine for early-stage startups. We help founders turn launches, product updates, and what they're learning into media they own.

In 2024 we acquired Mirror and raised $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures. I lead product, engineering, and company-building.

### Mirror

CEO, via acquisition · 2024–2025 · [mirror.xyz](https://mirror.xyz)

In May 2024, Paragraph acquired Mirror, the onchain publishing platform founded by Denis Nazarov, which had raised more than $10 million from a16z and USV. We raised $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures alongside the deal.

We ran Mirror next to Paragraph, with nothing changing for its writers. In September 2025 we retired it and moved every Mirror writer and post to Paragraph.

### Google

Senior Software Engineer & Manager · 2017–2022 · [google.com](https://google.com)

I led engineering work on communications anti-abuse, building systems to protect people from spam, scams, and fraud across messaging surfaces.

I built our first on-device anti-abuse SDK, and deployed ML models and heuristic rules to millions of devices.

I also led initiatives in the privacy working group, ensuring abuse protections could work with minimal data collection and proper guardrails.

### Coinbase

Engineer, Payments · 2015–2016 · [coinbase.com](https://coinbase.com)

I worked on payments infrastructure and helped launch Coinbase in Canada.

I also improved Bitcoin private-key signing infrastructure and anti-abuse systems around payments flows.

## Podcasts & press

- [Paragraph absorbs Mirror in web3 publishing consolidation](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/paragraph-absorbs-mirror-web3-publishing-200308303.html) · In Yahoo Finance · Sep 2025
- [Onchain Media Empires with Paragraph and Mirror](https://paragraph.com/@kaloh/paragraph-mirror-colin-armstrong) · On Kaloh's Podcast · Sep 2024
- [Paragraph, writing onchain](https://open.spotify.com/episode/28lwX3Ug0TByIYTQbljKLy) · On Into the Bytecode · Aug 2024
- [Paragraph raises $5 million from USV and Coinbase Ventures, takes over Mirror](https://www.theblock.co/news/deals/2024-05-02-paragraph-raises-5-million-from-usv-and-coinbase-ventures-takes-over-web3-blogging-platform-mirror-292221) · In The Block · May 2024
- [Web3 newsletter Paragraph raises $5M and takes over blogging platform Mirror](https://siliconangle.com/2024/05/03/web3-newsletter-paragraph-raises-5m-takes-blogging-platform-mirror/) · In SiliconANGLE · May 2024
- [Introducing Referral Rewards: an interview with Colin Armstrong](https://paragraph.com/@danicaswanson/referral-rewards-interview-with-colin-armstrong) · Interviewed by Danica Swanson · Oct 2023
- [How blockchain can transform the newsletter industry](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJ_BwfLCzKs) · On Milk Road · May 2023
- [Colin Armstrong, founder of Paragraph](https://open.spotify.com/episode/7DNIPl4AgIZ7mFHTl6rb84) · On Humans of Farcaster · May 2023
- [The 3 pillars of building Paragraph](https://insidetheden.captivate.fm/episode/paragraph-and-its-three-pillars-with-colin-arnstrong) · On Inside the Den · Apr 2023
- [#38: How Paragraph combined web2 and web3 to build a Substack alternative](https://listen.style/p/01grfnkjj5ypb47k8wxkdy1j09/01grfnkjkp8fpdj5p1czsbgz1b) · On Web3 Talks · Jan 2023
- [Web3 newsletter platform Paragraph raises $1.7M in pre-seed funding](https://siliconangle.com/2022/10/24/web3-newsletter-platform-paragraph-raises-1-7m-pre-seed-funding/) · In SiliconANGLE · Oct 2022
- [Web3 publishing platform Paragraph raises $1.7 million](https://www.theblock.co/news/deals/2022-10-24-web3-publishing-platform-paragraph-raises-179174) · In The Block · Oct 2022