--- title: "Robert Nikic | Author of Problems Pay and TEDx Speaker" description: "Robert Nikic is an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and the author of Problems Pay, a six-move method for turning problems into payments." canonical: "https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic" author: "Robert Nikic" author_url: "https://robertnikic.com/" type: "ProfilePage" --- AUTHOR · ENTREPRENEUR · TEDx SPEAKER # Robert Nikic Robert Nikic is an entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and advisor on innovation and economic growth to an international council working on United Nations SDG 8 & 9. He is the author of Problems Pay. ![Robert Nikic, author of Problems Pay](https://problemspay.com/assets/robert-nikic-author.webp) ROBERT NIKICFACTS KNOWN FOR : Problems Pay, a six-move method for handling problems WORK : Entrepreneur and founder SPEAKING : TEDx speaker ADVISORY : Innovation and economic growth, SDG 8 & 9 FIRST DOLLAR : At thirteen - [robertnikic.com](https://robertnikic.com) - [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertnikic) - [X](https://x.com/robertnikic) - [Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/robertnikic) - [YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/@robertnikic) - [TikTok](https://www.tiktok.com/@nikicrobert) ## Why Robert Nikic wrote Problems Pay Robert Nikic didn't set out to write a memoir. "A memoir pays one man," he writes. "A method, if it works, pays everyone who picks it up." Problems Pay is that method: the one thing almost no man is taught, which is what to do with a problem besides hide it. The whole book rests on one rule. Every problem has a price, and every problem pays. Carry a problem and it charges you interest. Collect on it and it pays you. The six moves are how you collect: say "Good," own it, find the root, price it, make the smallest move into uncertainty, and make it stick. ## Where he started He made his first dollar at thirteen, selling a virtual private server from a closet in his parents' house. He worked a hotel front desk and a restaurant floor through high school, and left community college within twenty-four hours of a conversation with a teacher who asked him for a job. Years of failed ventures followed before anything worked. He maxed out his credit cards on one of them and was left with nothing. He has stood in a restroom minutes before signing a deal, having just learned the money behind it was gone, and had to decide what his face would do when he walked back in. Those failures became the method in this book. ## Where he comes from Born to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother, Robert came to the United States as a child refugee from the former Yugoslavia after his family fled the Balkan wars. The family arrived in New York with five suitcases, spent its first months in a refugee shelter, and started over in Kentucky before settling in Florida. He was the first in his family to learn English and translated for his parents from the age of four. "When my family came out of a war, we learned how to take nothing and turn it into something," he writes. "You don't need a war to learn it. You need a problem, and you already have plenty of those." ## The work now Today his work focuses on the basics that decide whether a small business survives. He calls them the rails: getting paid faster, fair access to credit, selling across borders, simpler rules for starting a business, and real second chances for people with a past. As he puts it in Chapter 13, it's not the capital. It's the rails. "I'd rather you spend your time on your problems than on my past." [See the book](https://problemspay.com/book)[Book Robert to speak](https://problemspay.com/speaking)[robertnikic.com ↗](https://robertnikic.com) More on robertnikic.com: his [full biography](https://robertnikic.com/about), [TEDx talk and interviews](https://robertnikic.com/media), [recognition](https://robertnikic.com/recognition) and [journal](https://robertnikic.com/blog). IN HIS WORDS ## Robert Nikic, on problems. - > Every problem has a price, and every problem pays. - > Business taught me how to handle problems. Life taught me how to solve them. - > You're not solving problems. You're building yourself. [All Robert Nikic quotes](https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic-quotes) SPEAKING AND PRESS ## Bring the method to your room. Keynotes, team workshops and interviews built on Problems Pay. [SPEAKING →Keynotes and Problems Pay for Teams](https://problemspay.com/speaking)[PRESS →Bios, photos, book facts and interview topics](https://problemspay.com/press)[EVENTS →Launch, tour and live sessions](https://problemspay.com/events) --- Source: https://problemspay.com/robert-nikic Problems Pay by Robert Nikic. Author site: https://robertnikic.com/ The content of this publication has not been approved by the United Nations and does not reflect the views of the United Nations or its officials or Member States.