US small business owner here, 100% remote telecommuting staff. (No, we're not hiring, heh.)
The first problem is your competition: the instant that a job doesn't require a physical presence, then you're going up against every possible candidate, in every possible location. It's easy to be in the top 1% of candidates in your city, but it's really, really hard to be in the top 1% of candidates in the entire world. Plus, keep in mind that your competition may live in a way cheaper location, and be willing to work for way less money. (Or, they're willing to take a pay cut in order to stay near their family or favorite location or restaurant or whatever.)
Whenever we post a consultant position on our site, we get 200-400 applications in a few days, and they're from a stunning number of qualified people. There have been hiring rounds where I wished we could hire a dozen people because they were all such good fits. Getting to the top of that pile is really, really hard.
The second problem is accounting and taxes. Every time we hire someone in a different US state, we have to deal with different tax laws, business licenses, and health plans. If I had to guess, it costs us 20-40 hours of admin work whenever we add someone in a new state (or when an existing employee moves to a new state.) Adding another country makes it even worse.
Another problem in your case: when you say "without any trips," that makes it sound like you don't even want to come into the office for orientation, or to do planning sessions with the team, or team-building, or even conferences for learning or growth. I'm pretty suspicious when I hear that someone doesn't even want to learn at conferences - that's one of the ways we get the team together each year. I'm not saying you can't learn unless you're at a conference, obviously, but saying no trips at all - that's a tough sell.
I'm outside USA, and the tax thing is simple: I send you an invoice, you send me money. Nothing more, nothing less. No insurance problems, or different law issues.
As for the conferences, I attended some, I was even presenting on some. I learned nothing, as most of the stuff I had already known. Currently I learn from books. Usually from algorithms, and math ones. This is the kind of stuff you won't find on conferences. Btw, many conference videos are available on youtube, so going there to learn is IMHO not the main reason for a conference.
In my experience, most companies hire from their own time zone.
Some prefer that the people speak the companies native language or are good in English.
Then, many people don't want to work remote, which cuts the ratio between "top 1% of candidates in your city" and "every possible candidate" much more.
Also, smaller companies aren't well known and don't get as much applications as big ones, so if they're simply bad at hiring (which almost every company is, especially the small ones) the competition doesn't even know that there is an opportunity to compete.
The first problem is your competition: the instant that a job doesn't require a physical presence, then you're going up against every possible candidate, in every possible location. It's easy to be in the top 1% of candidates in your city, but it's really, really hard to be in the top 1% of candidates in the entire world. Plus, keep in mind that your competition may live in a way cheaper location, and be willing to work for way less money. (Or, they're willing to take a pay cut in order to stay near their family or favorite location or restaurant or whatever.)
Whenever we post a consultant position on our site, we get 200-400 applications in a few days, and they're from a stunning number of qualified people. There have been hiring rounds where I wished we could hire a dozen people because they were all such good fits. Getting to the top of that pile is really, really hard.
The second problem is accounting and taxes. Every time we hire someone in a different US state, we have to deal with different tax laws, business licenses, and health plans. If I had to guess, it costs us 20-40 hours of admin work whenever we add someone in a new state (or when an existing employee moves to a new state.) Adding another country makes it even worse.
Another problem in your case: when you say "without any trips," that makes it sound like you don't even want to come into the office for orientation, or to do planning sessions with the team, or team-building, or even conferences for learning or growth. I'm pretty suspicious when I hear that someone doesn't even want to learn at conferences - that's one of the ways we get the team together each year. I'm not saying you can't learn unless you're at a conference, obviously, but saying no trips at all - that's a tough sell.