Dire Hits did not come from a boardroom brainstorm with stale coffee and a whiteboard full of brand words. It came from Pokémon, obviously.
Dominic Johnson, Head of Sales and Marketing and Chief Content Officer, says the name was inspired by the in-game item Dire Hit, which raises a Pokémon’s critical hit ratio. In collector language, the best cards pulled from packs are called “hits.” Put the two together and Dire Hits basically named itself.
Johnson launched the business with his partner, Darien Brown, after years of talking about how cool it would be to build something of their own around trading cards and collectibles. Then Brown made the move and said he was in. For Johnson, the idea hit harder than a holographic pull.
“I’m a huge nerd,” Johnson says. “I’ve loved Pokémon since I was a kid.”
That childhood obsession did not stay in the past. Johnson still plays the games, collects the cards and shares the fun with his daughter, who now loves Pokémon too. Dire Hits gives him a way to turn that lifelong fandom into a business built on creativity, content and community.
It also gives him a new lane for a creator side that was already there. Johnson has been making content for years, including comedic ADHD-related videos on TikTok that found an audience. Now, he gets to bring that same personality into a world that feels deeply personal.
The timing does not hurt either. Johnson sees Pokémon TCG sitting at peak popularity, with collectors jumping back in, longtime fans chasing the cards they could not get as kids and social media turning every big pull into a moment.
And the card world today is very much not the same playground trading scene people remember from childhood.
Johnson jokes that back then, people were not seeing “grown adults starting a fight club at Fry’s just for a few sealed items.” Funny because it is absurd. Less funny because anyone who has seen collectible chaos in the wild knows the energy is real.
Dire Hits is aiming for a different lane.
The business currently lives across WhatNot, TCG Player and Instagram, with WhatNot serving as the fast-paced home for sealed product sales and TCG Player working as the slower, long-game channel for bulk Pokémon cards. Johnson says most of the current customers appear to be in their 20s and 30s, ranging from people returning to the hobby to collectors who never left.
Live streaming is a big part of the magic. For Johnson, opening packs on stream is not just about the card. It is about the shared gasp, the bell ringing, the sleeve sliding on, the top loader snap and the knowledge that someone is about to get that card in the mail from Dire Hits.
He has seen cards worth $100 to $200 pulled from sealed packs through Dire Hits, including a special illustration rare worth $200 during a recent stream. The customer got the hit. Johnson got the joy of the moment.
“Honestly, it fills me with joy to be opening packs in general,” Johnson says.
That sense of shared excitement is where Dire Hits wants to grow. Johnson envisions more than online sales. The big dream includes Arizona events, live tournaments, streamed tournaments, trade nights, pop-ups, a physical shop, a bigger social presence and partnerships with other companies and distributors.
He also wants to keep building content for wider audiences, including kids. That piece matters because Dire Hits is not just chasing collectors with cash and nostalgia. It is also thinking about the next generation of fans walking into the hobby with wide eyes and a starter-level budget.
There is a kid-centered idea on the horizon: a “Packs for Kids” style program where people could donate cards or money so Dire Hits can create packs specifically for kids. Johnson says the current scramble for new product can make it hard for young fans to simply get into the game without their parents paying inflated prices.
For him, that matters. He remembers what it felt like to love Pokémon before content platforms existed, before streams, before TikTok, before creators could build entire worlds around the things they adored as kids. Now, Dire Hits lets him create the kind of Pokémon-centered space he would have wanted growing up, while making content his daughter can enjoy too.
It is part nostalgia, part business, part community experiment and part full-circle nerd dream. Arizona’s collector scene has plenty of people chasing the next big hit. Dire Hits wants to make sure the fun still lands with the people who love the game most.
Insider Takeaways
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Dire Hits was inspired by the Pokémon item Dire Hit and the collector term “hits” for top cards pulled from packs.
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The business was launched by Dominic Johnson and Darien Brown after years of dreaming about owning a trading card and collectibles company.
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Dire Hits currently connects with collectors through WhatNot, TCG Player and Instagram.
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The community skews toward collectors in their 20s and 30s, from returning fans to longtime hobby loyalists.
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A future “Packs for Kids” concept could help young collectors get cards without families paying inflated resale prices.
To learn more, visit direhits.com.
