The Marketplace For Commercial Space: Molli Leoni Scout Marketplace

What if finding a commercial space started with the business looking for one—not just a landlord posting a listing? Molli Leoni, founder of Scout Marketplace, is building a tenant-first marketplace to help businesses and property owners connect. If you’re building a startup or navigating commercial real estate, this conversation is for you. Molli and her co-founder saw a disconnect firsthand as Miami commercial brokers: tenants can struggle to find the right spaces, while landlords may not know which businesses are looking. Scout flips the process. Tenants post what they need, and landlords and developers can search for concepts that fit their properties. Brokers can post on behalf of clients, too. Molli shares how the team plans to grow Scout, starting locally in Florida and focusing first on bringing tenants onto the platform. She discusses bootstrapping, the marketplace’s subscription-based model for landlords, and why the founders plan to wait until they have deals closed before raising funds. She also reflects on her first brokerage listing—a $2 million office building deal that fell out of contract several times before closing. The conversation gets personal, too. Molli talks about putting herself on camera despite being private, moving past the awkwardness of starting with a small audience, and learning not to take rejection or tough negotiations personally. Host Abhishek shares how personal branding helped him build connections and generate business. Molli’s advice to young founders is direct: make time to work on the idea you can’t stop thinking about, rather than regretting that you built someone else’s dream. Hear how she’s building Scout and what it takes to keep moving through the uncertainties of entrepreneurship.