I grew up genuinely believing that I would become a rock star. But then somewhere around sophomore year of high school, I became a realist; I looked at the numbers. Being a musician is just really, really expensive. Even genuine rock stars are having a hard time figuring out how to make good money in the industry these days.

When I graduated college, the decision to suit up and join the corporate world was not a hard one to make. I had no problem foregoing my quest for fame in return for financial stability, as long as I could spend my spare time and money writing and recording my music.

As it turned out, after taxes, rent (in San Francisco), transportation and debt repayments, there really wasn’t much cash for me to throw at expensive recording studios and session musicians, let alone a decent keyboard. And “free” time just wasn’t a thing at all.

So, two years after making this bargain with myself, I had nothing to show as a musician but a few songs I wrote and recorded on my iPhone.

Then one day, I realized that was actually all I needed. An iPhone.

Advances in digital audio technology have made it easier, faster and cheaper to produce professional quality music. The laptop has become the studio of choice for many of today’s most famous musicians.

What’s more is that you don’t necessarily even need a laptop. Using an app like Fiverr, its possible to hire real musicians from around the world to record and produce an entire song completely from your phone. Fiverr is a marketplace for services starting at $5, so the whole shebang ends up being cheap as hell too.

With this in mind, I decided to embark on my reinvigorated quest for rockstardom. Over the course of just a few weeks, I used Fiverr to create what might be the cheapest, fastest professional quality song ever produced… completely from a phone… plus an accompanying music video, album art, and marketing.

This is the story of how a guy with no connections, no time, and very little talent—

just an idea, an iPhone, and $290

—can make his childhood dreams come true. Here’s how it went down.

“Throw Me Out To Sea”

Everyone knows the most important asset for a rock star is their hairdo, so naturally that was priority number one for me. Before singing a single note, I got myself a sweet mohawk — just like the cool kids.

Next, I had to record a scratch track—this is a low quality recording of vocals and guitar or piano with a click track that other musicians listen to initially as they record their parts. For me, low quality was an understatement—I forgot lyrics, sang out of tune, and accidentally repeated sections way too many times.

This quest for rockstardom was off to a rocky start…

I chose to record “Throw Me Out To Sea,” an upbeat, sentimental song I wrote about two years ago. I’ve always been a fan of pop music—I think catchy songs are the hardest to write—so a lot of my music ends up sounding fairly mainstream. But despite my occasional hipsterisms, I’m pretty ok with it.

I used the Voice Memos app on my iPhone to record the scratch track. From there, I transferred the recording to a Google Drive folder and shared it with musicians and producers on the Fiverr mobile app. I also included basic directions, a chord chart and a Spotify playlist of songs I wanted my song to sound like.

Sounds complicated, but the idea was simple: send my crappy iPhone recording to a bunch of amazing musicians scattered across the globe and hope they can independently record their respective parts on top of it so that in the end, the song sounds halfway decent.