When I spoke to the co-founder of the exclusive Million Dollar Sellers club, Eugene Khayman, last year, he likened their member-only events to a family reunion, “where you’re actually excited to see everybody there.”
Khayman is the chief operating officer of MDS, a community of elite Amazon sellers and e-commerce founders who generate at least $1 million in annual revenue.
The in-person gatherings — where members connect, trade ideas, and swap strategies — are just one piece of the community, but they’re a big one. There are multiple MDS chapters in major cities around the world that meet regularly, one member-only summit per year held in exotic locations like Milan (2025) and Singapore (2026), and various events open to the public, like the one I’m attending: MDS Inspire.
I’m going up as a reporter, certainly not an MDS member, though a girl can dream.
On Monday, March 9, I drove from Los Angeles to Las Vegas to spend two days inside the Wynn, surrounded by Amazon sellers doing seven, eight, and even nine figures. My objective was to observe, ask questions, and try to figure out what these elite sellers obsess over, what they’re worried about, and what “winning” looks like in e-commerce right now.
Day 1: A 4:15 a.m. alarm, 280 miles of highway, and the Wynn maze
My alarm goes off at 4:15 a.m. By 4:30, I’ve pulled a double espresso shot, and by 5, I’m on the road to Vegas, about 280 miles northeast of LA.
Sin City is popular for conferences because it has the space and hotels built to host crowds. The one other professional event I attended — a real estate conference — was also in Las Vegas.
A 5 a.m. departure should get me to the Wynn, a massive luxury resort hosting the conference, with enough time to park and check in before the first scheduled event: a 10:30 a.m. opening statement and remarks.
Traffic behaves, and I pull into the self-parking lot just after 9, with plenty of time to collect myself and begin the long, winding journey through ornate hallways, past the casino, and down an escalator. I refer to the event app for directions and, a couple thousand steps later, I reach the conference check-in.
While waiting to collect my credentials, I meet Jake, who’s in from Dallas. He runs a beauty brand and tells me he’s here to learn about sales channels outside Amazon. For subscription-heavy businesses like his, Amazon can be complicated.
The conference area consists of a main room for keynotes and smaller rooms for breakout sessions. Partners providing services in logistics, advertising, and growth have booths set up inside and outside. There’s also a barista serving up made-to-order espresso drinks.
There are plenty of hydration options, too.
The space spills out onto a patio with more beverages and booths, as well as a “wellness area” offering massages and stretch therapy.
“Amazon is still king”
At 10:30, Khayman kicks off the conference with a schedule run-through and his “state of commerce” presentation. He said he started doing this a couple of years ago by pulling census data and stitching it together himself. It used to take weeks, but has become dramatically easier with AI.
This year, it took him closer to 15 minutes, “because Claude Cowork did a way better job of analyzing data,” he says. AI remains a hot topic throughout the conference, and everyone seems to prefer Claude.
According to Khayman’s breakdown, there are 139 brands in the room. The majority are $1 million to $5 million brands, though a healthy percentage do $10 million or more in annual revenue. Around 78% are MDS members.
One main takeaway from the report: “Amazon is still king,” he said.
For most sellers, most of their revenue still flows through Amazon, but one in three had built “a meaningful secondary channel,” he said, and are driving more than 15% of revenue from somewhere else, like retail, TikTok Shop, or direct-to-consumer.
The ‘signature MDS’ event: speed networking
At 11, the “signature MDS” event begins: “Meet N’ Speed.”
We’re each handed a card with five table numbers. Those are the tables we’ll travel to for each 12-minute networking round. The groups are small — six or seven people — and lively. Everyone naturally falls into a pattern: go around the table, answer the designated prompt for the round, and build off each other’s answers.
It’s a smart way to break the ice and allows introverts like me to network more easily than having to walk up to a stranger and start a conversation from scratch.
I meet sellers from all corners of the country: Charleston, Seattle, Boston. The prompts range from “If you had an extra $500,000, where would you deploy it?” to “What’s your biggest challenge right now?”
Most sellers agree they’d spend extra capital on inventory or talent acquisition. That leads to a conversation around how to find good employees, and I witness one member connecting another to the hiring agency he’s had success with on the spot.
The vibe feels less like a traditional conference and more like friends catching up, especially among members. As we transition tables, people stop to greet each other like old classmates.
At 12, we break for lunch.
The Mediterranean-inspired spread is impressive. There’s sea bass! Attendees use the lunch break to network, while I use it to jot down notes, check emails, and give my social battery a moment to recharge.
Breakout sessions begin in the afternoon. These are 20- to 30-minute presentations led by members on specific topics, such as scaling on YouTube or breaking into retail.
There are three breakout blocks, with three rooms running at once. Attendees choose the sessions that are most useful to their business. The sessions transport me back to college: you grab a seat, listen to the lecture, take notes, ask questions, and then spill back out into the main hallway.
Between sessions, “coffee chats” take place in a roped-off area. These are scheduled mini-meetings for sellers to connect one-on-one.
During one of the breaks between breakout sessions, I meet Prudence, an MDS member since 2019, who does eight figures selling a tanning product. She tells me that what she likes about the events is that you always leave with one or two insights that change how you think about your business. Plus, she adds, it’s hard to beat being surrounded by people who are smarter than you.
A little before 6, the final breakout sessions end, and we’re released back into the main hall for light bites, an open bar, and networking.
A waiter hands me a glass of champagne. At this point, I’ve been awake for 14 hours. I retreat to my corner table to take notes (and a few sips of bubbly).
After happy hour, there’s a group dinner for those who signed up.
On my way out, I run into Jake again, and it leads to my favorite interaction of the day with him and his friend Stuart, who’s a tennis nerd like me.
I leave a little before 7 p.m., pay $25 to exit the Wynn parking garage, and stop at Whole Foods to grab dinner before checking into my more economical hotel about 15 minutes away.
Day 2: matcha pudding, a hack contest, and the future of live shopping
On Tuesday, I’m back in the convention center by 9 a.m. and greeted with an elaborate breakfast, including matcha chia seed pudding.
I meet more sellers, including a member who has been with the group for six years and sells kids’ toys with his business partner.
The “hack contest” begins at 9:30, with members taking the stage to share their top business hacks. They’re allowed one slide and a few minutes to present. After each pitch, the audience decides who “wins” by applause — the last presenter goes head-to-head with whoever is holding the “streak.” One member keeps the streak alive for four rounds.
The main event is a 10:30 a.m. panel featuring Khayman interviewing two sellers and the founder of Outlandish, a company that helps brands scale through TikTok Shop and live commerce.
After closing remarks and member awards, many sellers stay through the rest of the day and into Wednesday morning for more coffee chats and focus groups. Some conference-goers will merge with another e-commerce conference, Prosper, happening simultaneously in the same conference space.
By the end of my 15 or so hours in the conference hall, the takeaway that stuck with me wasn’t one specific tactic or strategy (though I did note that running through most conversations was the importance of leveraging AI and TikTok Shop). It was the atmosphere: being in a room where nearly everyone is a high achiever and willing to swap strategies felt like a cheat code.
The experience also felt different as an observer than it probably does as a seller. If I were attending as a true participant, I’d do things differently: I wouldn’t drive on the day of. These are long, high-output days, and I’d want to be well rested to get the most out of them. I’d also network more intentionally. I retreated to my corner table to take notes whenever my social battery dipped, which made sense for reporting, but probably isn’t how you maximize a networking-heavy conference like this.
The vibe was professional and enthusiastic. There were photographers, videographers, and even a “swag” table featuring MDS merch. Everyone spoke with confidence and intention. I did feel a bit like an outsider without a $1 million brand, and some of the more strategic lectures went over my head. The room skewed male, and even though everyone was technically a competitor, there was still a sense of trust and camaraderie.
My last interaction happens in the women’s bathroom. Bina, whom I’d met during speed networking on Monday, says hello. She’s one of the few women in attendance. She lives between NYC and France, has been a member for about a year and a half, and sells in the beauty space.
I get her contact info, then begin to work my way back through the maze that is the Wynn.
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