Walking into a Million Dollar Sellers event is like stepping into the pit of a rock concert. It's loud, it's electric, and it's a little chaotic.

"Think of it like a family reunion, where you're actually excited to see everybody there," the COO of the community, Eugene Khayman, told Business Insider. "It's very high-energy."

Million Dollar Sellers, or MDS, consists of Amazon sellers and e-commerce entrepreneurs who bring in at least $1 million in annual revenue. Events — in which community members connect in person, trade ideas, and swap strategies — are just one aspect of the community.

"At the center of it is still a Facebook group," said Khayman. "It's your collective 24/7 brain trust so, at any point in time, you can drop a question."

He came across the group in 2016, a few years after he started selling kitchen products on Amazon. At the time, it was a Facebook group for private label sellers doing at least $10,000 in monthly revenue. The threshold grew to $50,000 a month and, eventually, $1 million a year.

Khayman said that joining the group made business more fun while helping him stay competitive. His brand, eparé, had hit the seven-figure annual revenue mark, but sales started dropping as e-comm grew in popularity and new sellers burst onto the scene.

"There were a lot of strategies that people were using that were destroying me," he said. "I wasn't keeping up with the information fast enough."

It was his idea to bring the MDS Facebook group to life through in-person events. He organized the first one at an all-inclusive resort in Cancún.

"I charged people $99 for a ticket — and I lost money on it because I thought all-inclusive meant that you didn't have to pay for anything," said Khayman, adding that the bill was worth it. "It was amazing energy."

As live events took off, so did the community. As of 2025, there are about 700 MDS members who pay $7,497 a year to be a part of the group.

Khayman still runs two e-comm brands, but said he prefers to direct more of his time and energy to growing MDS: "As I did all of these events, I saw people coming together and I saw how much was being created from those relationships. I was getting a lot more fulfillment from that."

The application process has evolved as the MDS community has grown.

"In the very, very beginning, it was quite simple," said Khayman. Prospective members would email the MDS founder a copy of their photo ID and a screenshot of their sales. However, as the group gained more exposure and applications started flowing in, the process became more rigorous, primarily so that MDS could maintain its core identity. "No community ever wants to get bigger. That's always a thing, like, it's going to lose its charm if it gets too big. And everybody wanted to really preserve that."

The interview is meant to screen for a type of person, not necessarily a type of business.

"They need to have the mindset that they're coming in here to help and share and become a member of the community," said Khayman. "Sometimes people come in with some kind of agenda to sell some other product or service, so it's meant to filter for that."

One of the group's core values is: Give more, get more.

"That's a big thing we try to instill in everybody, so there's not really much judgment or flash," said Khayman. "It's just people that are really deep in their businesses and just wanting to help one another."

Once the interview is complete and the application is approved, members gain access to exclusive events, a network of high-level sellers, and online groups that share insights, experiences, and resources.

Despite the challenges of growing, Khayman recognizes the immense benefits of having more members. It allows specific sub-groups to form, so sellers in the kitchen space or supplement space, for example, can discuss their industry-specific challenges.

"There's enough members in each of these specific domains to give each other value," he said.

Selling on Amazon has never been more complex and competitive.

When Khayman started in the early 2010s, "my first year of selling on Amazon, I sold $150,000 worth of pepper grinders," he said. "These were pepper grinders that I was buying for $5 and selling for $50 on Amazon. I took home 80% of that as profit."

Today, it's much harder to run a profitable Amazon business. The fees are higher, the competition is stiffer, and the strategies are constantly evolving. Tariffs added an entirely new level of complexity at the start of 2025.

"For a long time, we were a very Amazon-focused community, and we've been trying to break away from that overall stigma and just be a general community for e-commerce founders," said Khayman. "It's been nice to see over the past few years that people coming into the group have a wider understanding of e-commerce. Amazon is just a part of their business, rather than their whole business, and I think that aligns with the future. If people are treating Amazon as their whole business, they're definitely more at risk."

There's a big selling opportunity right now on TikTok, for example. He said the current TikTok marketplace reminds him of Amazon in the early years.

Being a member of a group like MDS helps entrepreneurs spot these trends, adapt, and stay ahead of the curve.

It also can help with moral, which is inevitably going to be low at times for every entrepreneur.

"We get a lot of members saying that their team or significant others want them to go to these events because they come back very excited with high energy," said Khayman. "Business is always raining. Business always gets you down, so it's like a pick me up."

Perhaps the biggest perk of all, though, is the network.

"I truly think the best way to succeed is to surround yourself with people that have already succeeded," he said. "You're going to make mistakes and mistakes are always great, but why learn from your own mistakes when you can learn from other people's?"