ALEXANDER WHALEY

HOW DID I GET HERE?

In 2004 I was working on my PhD in Chemistry and generally coasting along. My life was great – wife – travel to other countries – fairly easy job. Low pay, but not much to worry about apart from supervising a laboratory twice a week and tutoring students in need of help.

While sitting in the lab waiting for an experiment finish, I would read up about computers and the internet and I started my first site about game programming. In those days we only had dial-up modems, which severely limited the possibilities, but with a bit of patience and a lot of tinkering on Dreamweaver, it got to a pretty decent size, reaching beyond my direct circle of friends but I had no idea how to make a living off my efforts and this limited my enthusiasm for the site.

In late 2004, the bombshell landed! We were going to have a baby boy – suddenly the pressure ratcheted up. Instead of needing beer money, I needed nappy money! Fortunately, in 2005, I joined a company called LECO in their African subsidiary.

The job was fascinating, merging my science background and teaching with sales and marketing. More than that, I had to figure out how to sell stuff into Africa without being able to travel routinely into Africa. To give you an idea, I was down at the very tip at the bottom and had to reach folks across “China” and the “USA”.

The sheer size and remoteness of the continent meant that the traditional door-to-door approach would not work. In addition, while we sold equipment to companies, the real sale was to people.

To facilitate this, I joined our website development group and updated my section of our website to make it more user friendly and easier for customers to reach us, eventually integrating a virtual tradeshow platform generated by our European counterparts.

Internet marketing became a passion and I started up a couple of websites to learn more about online marketing while helping friends setup their own platforms, including the local society for chromatography in 2013, taking it from a prehistoric design to a modern version.

In 2018, I started seriously looking into developing internet marketing into a full-time career and developed a concept to assist disadvantaged individuals to turn their financial lives around. Too often we see people struggle to get a formal education yet lose out on the informal upbringing that most of us get around a dinning table. This led me to assist several colleagues to develop financial recovery plans and sound financial management plans for their household incomes, getting out of debt and starting to develop true wealth.

My passion for the field and the people in science have led me to be invited to present at career days at Universities and conferences, helping young students to navigate their early careers and determine their own futures while also raising awareness in the water field.

Straight Fire Life is the culmination of my efforts, the results which have already been proven are being tested by 3-4 other sites right now to show that this is a tried and tested method that works while I regularly start a new Quora profile to show that it is possible to attract a following within 2 months. Linked to the website is my StraightFireLife YouTube Channel.

My goal is simple. To help as many people as possible to make their way out of their daily grind and to harness their knowledge, which is unique, weld it to my internet marketing approach and forge their own future in this brave new world.

MY PERSONAL STORY

One day when I grow up, I will walk down the street and someone will recognise me… Nah, it is not that important – what matters is making a difference in the world – to be the change that we want to see on this earth.

I live in Pretoria, South Africa, with my wife Maria and our two kids. We have been blessed with really smart kids, with perhaps just a touch too much talent.

My day job is as a Sales Director for Africa, Asia and the Pacific Rim, which is a large area with many diverse and distinct traditions and lifestyles. This job has allowed me to travel to every continent apart for Antarctica and South America, though I have a good shot at Antarctica soon.

My evenings and weekends are filled with my hobbies and passion – cooking and reading – that is when my brother is not irritating me about the online game we play together – Clash of Clans. I will probably have to give that up soon though.

My life has been about 2 things – learning and teaching. No matter where I go, I seem to start on the sidelines learning and pretty soon I jump in take over and start teaching. This can be a problem as I sometimes experience the “shiny object syndrome” – no matter, some themes in my life have become so strong that I gravitate over and over to them.

My friends all seem to share the same passion – from starting a science engagement platform – scibraai to developing a resource to helping young adults snag their first job.

Africa is my passion – I have grown up in over 8 different countries in Africa, as well as the USA and the UK. Seeing the contrast between these places has shown me that the only really difference is education and opportunity.

This project, Straight Fire Life, along with the partner, Straight Fire Money are my way of giving back to the communities that raised me.