April 9, 2024

At first, Alexis Mahlen wasn’t eager to take the meeting with the man who would become her future husband.

“I kind of pushed him off,” she acknowledged of the time about seven years ago when newcomer commercial broker Marcus Mahlen reached out to get to know his new industry counterpart.

“I’m like, ‘Why do I want to go have coffee with someone who’s going to be a competitor?’ That’s not usually my mantra, but it was kind of poor timing,” she said.

She offered one time slot: a month out at 7 a.m.

“Because I knew I had an 8 a.m.,” she laughed.

“It was at least a month out,” Marcus added. “At 7 a.m.”

Marcus showed up before she did at coffee, asked the owner for Alexis’ beverage of choice and had it waiting when she arrived.

“I remember thinking I need to have my (you know what) together,” he said. “It’s pretty rare to have a meeting more than a month out, and I didn’t live in that world, so I remember thinking I need to get prepared. I need to be there on time, and I didn’t have any premonitions.”

Impressed by the initiative, “I remember being like, ‘Oh he’s really easy to talk with,'” Alexis said. “It was like, OK, I guess he’s going to be a competitor. I could see it. Competitors in commercial real estate have to have a good relationship, a professional relationship, so I was like, I guess this will work.”

It went just a bit better than that.

A little more than two years later, flanked by the Arc of Dreams downtown, Marcus and Alexis agreed to become husband and wife.

They’re now the parents of two sons: Jack, born in July 2021, and Miles, born in May 2023.

“We’re kind of flying by the seat of our pants,” Alexis said. “We realized we don’t know many people our age both in sales and involved in the community and raising a family at the same time, and we both want to be very involved. We’re both people who want to give it all to whatever we have in front of us. It’s not been easy.”

But they’re learning their way through navigating it all and now adding another role: podcast hosts.

This week, they launch “605 Founders,” a series of interviews with business owners.

“I’m a podcast listener and a fan,” said Marcus, who wanted to capture the stories of the founders he has met through this career — “a lot of names that I’ve learned about that this town is on the backbone of. And I think a lot of those stories should be done in a way that’s conversational and not a snapshot in time but a look back at their life,” he said.

He started working with The Sampson House to produce the series and then began looking for a co-host.

“I talked to a few people around town, and everyone said it was a great idea and they’d listen, but they don’t have the time or capacity to take it on,” he said. “And I realized it’d be really fun to do it with my partner, Alexis. She’s in the business world, and it’d be a good yin and yang and mix and match to have us both be part of it together.”

Alexis, who initially wasn’t sure of the idea shortly after Miles was born, decided to go with it.

“I could see his passion for the idea … so I wanted to help make this happen,” she said. “So that was the first priority, and this is more time I get to spend with him in this crazy season of our life. And I think there are a handful of people who say, ‘It’s really interesting you’re essentially competitors,’ and they’re curious about that.”

Yes and no when it comes to that, they said.

Marcus, a 2015 USD grad, joined NAI Sioux Falls in 2017 after originally pursuing economic development and spending time in sales.

Alexis, also a USD alum, graduated in 2011 and went back to her native Spearfish to work in real estate appraising with her father. She began pursuing her MBA in Sioux Falls and took a job with Lloyd Cos. in construction accounting before joining the commercial real estate team.

When they told their respective firms about the relationship, “we knew it was going to be interesting waters to navigate,” Alexis said. “If this doesn’t work out, it’s going to be really awkward. But luckily it did.”

Both firms were supportive, they said.

“They were like: ‘Wow, she’s dating you? Good for you,’” Marcus said, laughing. “There was not a care in the world on their end.”

He became a partner at NAI in 2020 and focuses largely on industrial deals. She has more retail and office listings, plus corporate clients.

“But I’ve developed such a good friendship with her co-workers that we just listed co-listed a property,” he said.

Their schedules have adjusted accordingly since growing their family. Marcus tends “to work a lot at night,” he said. Alexis balances child care runs in her day, and “more recently, I’ve been selling more on how to make my time most effective, especially at work,” she said.

The priority is “family first, work second, extracurriculars third,” he added. “That’s what we live by now.”

Listen in 

“605 Founders” launches its initial 10 episodes with two out today — featuring entrepreneurs Scott Lawrence of Lawrence & Schiller and Matt Paulson of MarketBeat.

Listen to the podcast here.