Indeed, as the other individual commented - there are compliance obligations which are more difficult/costly/time_consuming (not impossible) to satisfy if we have non US citizens working on the product. We are going to hire outside the US, but at our current stage there is a cost we can't easily absorb - right now.
> Could you elaborate on the compliance reasons for not hiring outside of US?
Every country has their own laws and regulations around employment that you have to comply with, so even if it would be fine from the US side it would still cause a lot of legal work from the other side. Small companies might get away with hiring them as contractors, but large companies would get targeted if they did that too much since not every country is as lenient with these things as USA is.