For a brief time I worked at a startup where all founders were remote by the time development began. It seems to be much more difficult to stay committed and focused on the tasks at hand when you only interact via email and irc, especially in the early stages where little is invested in the project by most of the members. Needless to say, it fell apart, and at least from my perspective looking back I would say that the remote working part definitely hurt the project. It was also bad that two of the three guys involved weren't entirely committed seeing as they had an easy way out three months into it if it didn't work out.