[saumil07]

I have yet to see it work successfully in a startup context - I am sure it can be done and there is certainly empirical evidence out there - but I have yet to see it work.

The feedback loop is frequently difficult to get right. Communication barriers don't help (fwiw I grew up in India so have some sort of limited advantage but not by much). The time zone difference does actually slow things down a tad bit more.

You talk about 2 rather different milestones in your comment - building a lo-fi MVP is certainly possible with an offshore team. But lo-fi MVP != product/market fit on any reasonable definition of p/m fit (Sean Ellis' formulation of 40% of users/customers) being disappointed with your disappearance, say). Getting to p/m fit may require lots of rapid experimentation, iteration, brainstorming and so forth...and that's when you can run into trouble with offshore contractors.