Ask HN: The long tail of Founders at Work

I recently finished reading Founders at Work (absolutely brilliant!) and was wondering about the early stages of startups that aren't as big as or weren't as successful as the startups included in the book. For eg, Peldi has a post about it here (http://www.balsamiq.com/blog/2008/10/14/personal-whats-your-story-why-start-balsamiq/). Similarly, I'm sure it will be really helpful for aspiring entrepreneurs to get insights from the early days of smaller, more normal startups (mom and pop shops on the internet). Hope it makes sense. Thanks.