From a Big Girl Job to Giant Chess: Mallory Walker on Leaving Corporate Insurance to Build Giant Peach Game Rentals

Mallory Walker had never done a podcast before, and she said so several times before host Logan Lewis even finished his intro. But once the cameras were rolling at the brand-new Your Morning Drive studio inside 216 Coworking in downtown Cartersville, the nerves gave way to one of the most candid conversations the show has had about walking away from a steady paycheck to bet on yourself. Mallory is a Cartersville native and Cartersville High School valedictorian who spent seven years climbing the ranks at Aon, one of the largest insurance brokerages in the world, before resigning last year to launch Giant Peach Game Rentals, an oversized lawn-game company she runs out of her parents' basement while working part-time at Drowned Valley Brewing Company down the street. Over the episode, she and Logan covered chorus solos, spreadsheet anxiety, and giant beer pong cans, but the throughline stayed consistent: comfort zones are only comfortable until you realize they're not enough anymore.

A Valedictorian Who Never Felt Like the Cool Kid

Mallory grew up a self-described Purple Hurricane through and through, moving through Cartersville's schools without ever locking into one tight friend group. "I was the nice to everyone kid," she told Logan. She played tennis and volleyball, sang in chorus, and made it to All-State choir, an experience that required singing solo, something she swore she'd never otherwise do. She graduated valedictorian, but she's quick to reject the idea that it came from raw talent. "I would not say I was book smart or the most book smart. I just worked really hard," she said, describing a kid who treated every test like the end of the world if she didn't score a hundred. Faith ran through it all too, with an active youth group at Sam Jones filling her Sundays and Wednesdays through middle and high school.

Seven Years at Aon, and the Slow Build Toward Leaving

At the University of Georgia, Mallory landed on risk management and insurance almost by accident, chasing a business degree without a clear major. It fit her risk-averse personality, and an internship at Aon the summer before her senior year turned into seven years on the account management side, the go-between for corporate clients and the brokerage's specialty teams in cyber, aviation, and general liability. She loved her coworkers and clients, but the job was relentless: different time zones, decision-makers who weren't actually the decision-makers, constant fire drills. "I always knew I'd wanted to not do that for the typical 40 years or so before you retire," she said. The entrepreneurial itch had been there since her college entrepreneurship club, but what finally pushed her to resign, she said, was her faith deepening through a season of change last spring. "I don't think I would have had the guts to resign if it hadn't have been for that."

Finding the Name — and the Idea — for Giant Peach

After leaving Aon, Mallory gave herself a few months to decompress before the idea found her, fittingly, in a thirty-second YouTube video listing low-overhead business ideas. Oversized lawn games weren't a new concept, but she wanted a version aimed at adults, not kids' birthday parties. Naming it was its own project: she wanted something that honored Cartersville, which is how the peach got in, but she steered clear of the punny "Big Peach" suggestions friends threw out. "I didn't want it to be super punny. And I also didn't want to use the word big. I wanted something bigger than that," she said, landing on Giant. From there she leaned hard on ChatGPT — "that thing became like my best friend, I guess you could say" — and wrote a fifteen-page business plan before ever creating an LLC or buying a single game, starting with giant corn hole, chess, and checkers from a supplier out of Texas.

The Lineup — and Keeping It Classy

The current lineup includes giant checkers and chess on matching eight-by-eight boards, six-foot corn hole, a leg-mounted ring toss, giant Scrabble with wooden tiles, giant Yardzee, giant Connect Four, and the crowd favorite: giant beer pong made from 32-gallon trash cans, red outside and white inside, played with volleyballs instead of ping-pong balls. Mallory is deliberate about the look of every piece. "I don't want to bring a Connect Four to an adult event and it's like a bright red and blue plastic," she explained. "It's wooden and black and white. I try to make them adult friendly so that they're pretty in pictures, but you don't feel like you look like a little kid playing them." She's booking weddings, backyard parties, brewery and vineyard events, town festivals, and starting to pitch corporate team-building days, drawing on her own memories of Aon trying to force bonding through awkward happy hours.

The Unglamorous Middle of Starting a Business

Mallory was refreshingly honest about the parts nobody posts about. Everything currently lives in her parents' basement, so every booking means hauling games out, loading whatever car or borrowed truck she can find, setting up, tearing down, and hauling it all back — often for free, while she's still building her audience. She learned the hard way not to post fixed pricing once she realized a job five miles away and one fifty miles away cost very differently, so bookings now run through a quote request. And leaving "a big girl job that made a decent, very good amount of money" for bookings-dependent income is, in her words, "a little scary and frightening." Add in switching accounting software and her first year of small-business taxes, and the shift from corporate structure to solo founder is its own kind of trial and error.

Entrepreneur vs. Business Owner, and Trusting the Timing

Toward the end, Mallory drew a distinction that clearly mattered to her: the difference between someone who owns a business and someone who is, at their core, an entrepreneur. "You're born with this entrepreneurial spirit," she said. "Don't give up on it, and also don't stress about when to pursue that... wait for the right moment, and when you finally get to that moment, you go for it." She's intentionally vague about a five-year plan because she doesn't want to cap what's possible, and she's already picturing Giant Peach expanding beyond Cartersville into the rest of Northwest Georgia through a territory-style model with local operators down the road. Whether the business is the destination or just a stepping stone, she trusts it's part of a bigger plan. Asked what her morning drive is, she didn't hesitate: coffee first, then going after whatever brings joy to people that day. "Find joy in the little things," she said, "and try to make that my day each day."

Listen to the Full Conversation

Mallory Walker's episode of Your Morning Drive is full of the kind of unfiltered, still-figuring-it-out honesty that makes a founder's story worth hearing before the highlight reel gets written. Catch the full conversation on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, and find Giant Peach Game Rentals at giantpeachgamerentals.com or on Instagram and Facebook to book giant games for your next wedding, backyard party, or company event.