The Client

Founded in 2022 by Texas A&M students Carter Kuo and Jackson Scheen, Concho USA began with a simple observation: there was a gap in the market for high-quality, stylish collegiate rope hats that students actually wanted to wear. Named after the Concho River region in West Texas where the founders spent their summers fishing, the brand is built on a passion for the outdoors and the Texan lifestyle. Today, Concho is redefining collegiate headwear with premium rope hats that blend tradition with modern design.

The Challenge

Concho started with just a crafter's license at Texas A&M, launching their first line with the famous block-T logo and several Concho-branded hats. After earning a full retail license within their first year, the company faced the reality of scaling in the highly competitive licensed headwear market. Despite having a strong brand vision and generating $400,000 in licensed sales with only a handful of licenses, Concho struggled to expand their licensing portfolio and gain the traction needed to establish themselves as a major player beyond their home campus.

The challenge was multifaceted: how could two student entrepreneurs navigate the complex landscape of multiple IP managers, each with different requirements for institutional approvals, categorical clearances, retail channel authorizations, and product-level sign-offs? Managing royalty reporting across various licensing bodies while also focusing on product development and brand building seemed nearly impossible without dedicated licensing expertise.

The Solution

Concho partnered with Onbase to transform their licensing approach and fuel their national expansion. Onbase provided comprehensive licensing management services, including:

• Strategic Portfolio Development: Identifying and securing high-value licensing opportunities across multiple conferences and IP management organizations

• Multi-Level Approval Management: Navigating institutional, categorical, retail channel, and product-level approvals across different IP managers

• IP Manager Relationship Management: Working directly with CLC, Affinity, and multiple other IP management organizations on Concho's behalf

• Compliance & Reporting: Managing all royalty reports and ensuring ongoing compliance across their entire licensing portfolio

• Conference Expansion Strategy: Coordinating growth within Texas schools, throughout the SEC, and across CLC and Affinity-managed institutions

This partnership allowed Concho's founders to focus on what they do best—creating quality headwear that fans are proud to wear—while Onbase handled the intricate, time-intensive world of licensing management.

The Results

The partnership with Onbase delivered transformative growth:

• Expanded from a handful to 25+ university licenses, strategically growing their presence across Texas, throughout the SEC conference, and into CLC and Affinity-managed institutions

• Multi-conference footprint with active partnerships across multiple IP management organizations

• Streamlined approval processes across institutional, categorical, retail channel, and product levels—allowing faster time-to-market for new designs

• Simplified royalty management with Onbase handling all reporting requirements across different IP managers

• Emerged as a premier collegiate headwear brand known for quality rope hats that blend Texas heritage with modern style

• Built on their $400K foundation to establish a robust, scalable licensing portfolio that supports continued national expansion

By removing the complexity of multi-organization licensing management, Onbase enabled Concho to maintain their focus on product quality and brand differentiation. The result: a brand that's keeping fans "Ramblin'" across multiple conferences and institutions, one quality hat at a time.