Do startups hire from overseas for their, say, first 5 hires?

[vedant_ag]

Are startups open to this or is the visa troubles not worth the upside of finding a good match?

For context: I am from India, and have co-founded 2 companies and worked in one as employee#1.

[davelnewton]

Unanswerable.

Sure, some might.

Most will look for local hires, for a variety of reasons (can't afford relo etc.) or hire remote (which has its own set of problems, but I suspect you know that).

[sharemywin]

I imagine it would depend on if differential in skills, expertise out weigh hassles of visa's etc.