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From BCG Slides to AI Co‐Workers: How Dominik Built Clicks to Automate Office Work
When most companies try to automate work, they rip out old software and rebuild from scratch. Dominik Helmerich kept the legacy stack and built Clicks to give it an AI co-worker instead.
Christian Holland
January 11, 2026
FOUNDER
Who is Dominik Helmreich?
Dominik went from a traditional Latin-focused education in Vienna, to one of the world’s best technical universities, to AI research at Stanford, to BCG consulting—and then walked away the day after his promotion to build Clicks, a Y Combinator backed company which is a computer-use agent automating office work on top of the software companies already use.
This is the story of how a technically strong, relentlessly ambitious founder is betting that the future of automation isn’t ripping out legacy tools—it’s giving every company an AI coworker that can use those tools like a human.
From Latin Classes in Vienna to ETH Zurich
Dominik grew up in Vienna in a very traditional academic environment.
“I have a very traditional background. I learned Latin in school. It was not like a computer science school.”
But he always knew he wanted to work in technology. When it came time to choose a university, his decision framework was brutally simple:
“My decision process was very easy. I just looked at the top 10 best universities in the world and then I checked which ones I could afford. And then the highest ranking one was ETH. I was like, great.”
He enrolled in Computational Science and Engineering at ETH Zurich—a CS-heavy program with more math—because he genuinely liked hard, quantitative problems.
Stanford AI Research and a Mindset Shift
During his time at ETH, Dominik went to Stanford to do AI research. Technically, it was valuable. Psychologically, it was transformational.
“I picked it on purpose because I knew it was going to be the best for this environment. It changed my perspective a lot.”
The biggest shift was cultural, not technical:
“In Europe, everybody always tells you why you can’t do something. In the US, I think a lot of people always say, ‘How can I help?’ Which I think is a different framing on how you see life.”
That framing—optimistic, collaborative, biased toward action—stuck with him and quietly set the foundation for his eventual jump into startups.
BCG, 80-Hour Weeks, and Nights Spent Coding
After graduating into the 2022 tech slowdown, Dominik needed to make money. He joined BCG and spent two years in consulting, working across:
Insurance
Healthcare
Automotive
Banking
He wasn’t just building slides.
I got to see a lot… what actual problems are, how people work.
But unlike most consultants, when he had time off, he didn’t unplug. He built.
“I don’t know when it was last time I actually took a vacation because every time I had time off from BCG I just coded and worked on other stuff. And I worked most weekends.”
He’d already been playing with the OpenAI API back when he was at Stanford—before GPT really broke out—so he was early to LLMs and natural language interfaces.
Still, despite multiple side projects, he didn’t yet have the conviction to quit.
Until he did.
“I always knew I didn’t want to stay in consulting, so I waited until I was promoted. Literally the day after I was promoted, I quit. I waited for the email.”
He walked away before his bonus would vest.
“It wasn’t worth it. I don’t care that much about money.”
COMPANY
Clicks
A Decade-Long Relationship Becomes a Startup
Dominik’s co-founder, Oliver Knapp, is also Austrian. They met at ETH in Switzerland nearly a decade ago.
“We met in Switzerland at ETH because there is a small community of people who are from Austria. So, I have known him for, I don’t know, 10 years almost.”
Oliver built his first startup out of university, and the two stayed close. When Dominik finally left BCG, they decided to build together.
They started with an idea that, in Dominik’s words, “was awful.” They pivoted hard for about two months. Out of that iteration loop came what eventually became Clicks—and an acceptance into Y Combinator.
Now, they’re heads down building: growing the team, scaling revenue, and planning their relocation from Zurich to San Francisco.
Simple version of what Clicks does:
“Our computer-use agents automate office work.”
In more detail:
Clicks gives companies AI coworkers that can use the existing software stack via the UI—just like a human would.
That sounds subtle, but it solves a massive problem: most of the world runs on legacy tools and deeply embedded processes.
The Simple Pitch
“The simple problem is you want to use AI and automate processes, but all your tools are legacy. So how do you go about that? It’s Clicks, we install on your tools. We give our AI your tools and they will use them right away. So you don’t need to change processes, you don’t need to change tools. You just onboard an AI co-worker.”
No multi-year migration. No massive retraining program. Just drop in an agent that uses your existing stack.
Y Combinator: Clarity of Thought and Performance Pressure
Clicks went through YC, where Dominik was interviewed and later advised by Tom Blomfield and Garry Tan.
Tom, in particular, left a mark:
“You can just see that they’ve experienced so much, especially Tom… he built two unicorns. One you can maybe say is luck, but two is definitely not.”
What Dominik valued most was Tom’s thinking:
The clarity of thought he has… people who can clearly say what they think—it’s very, very valuable.
In office hours, Tom wouldn’t just tell them what to do; he’d structure their problems:
“When you have a problem; he can ask very simple questions that really get at the root of the problem very fast. And then even if he doesn’t give you the answer, he structures the problem so clearly that it’s much easier for you to solve.”
Outside of partners, the batch itself created a form of healthy pressure.
“Maybe peer pressure is the wrong word, but just seeing everybody perform makes you also perform at a high level. I am a deep believer that you’re as successful as the people closest to you, so you always want to surround yourself with the best people.”
YC, for Dominik, was a no-brainer.
GTM: Outbound-First and Expanding Verticals
Right now, Clicks is firmly outbound led.
“Right now, we only do outbound. Our initial focus is to increase the number of channels that we go after.”
Current and Future Channels
Heavy on LinkedIn outbound today
Expanding into:
Conferences
Email
Cold calling
ICP: Ops-Heavy, Traditional Businesses
Clicks isn’t chasing SaaS-native startups. They’re going after companies where manual processes are deeply entrenched:
“Our ICP is the operations heavy businesses that are typically older… people we want to talk to are COOs, people with operations environments, for those who want to optimize their processes.”
Industries:
Today: Recruiting (their current vertical and early wedge)
Future: Logistics and healthcare
Where do you see Clicks in one year?
Dominik is clear on the growth ambition:
“We want to 20x our revenue, comfortably, from the end of last year. So yeah, we’ll be in the millions of revenue and have customers across multiple verticals.”
Relocating the Future of Office Work
Right now, Dominik and the team are still in Zurich—a city he genuinely loves.
“Honestly, I think Zurich is the best place in the world. But for building an AI-first company, San Francisco is for sure the best environment. I just think if you are in AI, SF is the place to be.”
So, they’re in the middle of visas, logistics, and the chaos of an international move, while:
Hiring
Expanding from recruiting into logistics and healthcare
Multiplying revenue
Turning their computer-use agents into a default way companies automate work on existing software
Why Dominik Stands Out
What struck me most talking to Dominik wasn’t just the idea behind Clicks—it was the throughline in how he operates:
Picks environments that stretch him (ETH, Stanford, BCG, YC, now SF)
Optimizes for learning and upside over short-term compensation (walking away from a bonus)
Relentlessly ships, even when working 80-hour weeks
Thinks in clear, sharp mental models about companies, cost structures, and behavior change
He’s not trying to replace software. He’s building the AI coworkers that will finally make all that entrenched software usable at the speed of AI.
If you’re a COO or operator drowning in manual, repetitive processes inside legacy tools—and you’re not ready to blow up your stack—Clicks might be the most practical way to bring AI into your workflows.
And if you’re building something ambitious in this space, Dominik is exactly the kind of founder you want in your network.
TL;DR
Dominik Helmerich went from a traditional Vienna education and BCG consulting to co-founding YC-backed Clicks, where he’s building AI “computer-use” agents that automate back-office work on top of the legacy software operations-heavy businesses already use.