Kevin Felipe Tabares
12+ years editing long-form YouTube. 1000+ videos shipped. 400M+ views generated across 17 verified creator clients ranging from 9K to 12.4M subscribers. Founder of Umbrella Creators in Bogotá, Colombia. Bilingual EN/ES.
What I do
I edit long-form YouTube videos. That's the entire focus. Not shorts, not reels, not TikToks — full-length 8 to 30 minute videos where retention, watch time and revenue are the metrics that matter. I lead a small team of vetted editors at Umbrella Creators, but I personally lead every project: pacing decisions, hook engineering, style match, retention review.
The work spans gaming and Roblox channels (the bulk of my book), lifestyle and long-form interview content, and increasingly tech and finance creators in 2026. The common thread isn't the niche — it's whether the creator actually cares about retention, not just views. If you're chasing virality, I'm not the right fit. If you're building a business on YouTube, I am.
The track record
Numbers that exist on a public, verifiable record (not a marketing slide):
- 1000+ long-form videos shipped over 12+ years
- 400M+ views generated across all client work
- 30M+ likes on those videos
- 17 five-star verified reviews on YT Jobs
- 9K to 12.4M subscriber range across the active client roster
The clients who let me name them publicly include:
- dakblake (3.75M subs) — sustained long-form output, 17 video deliveries with 5-star reviews
- Mud (1M subs) — Roblox Rivals news, scaled from 30K to 100K+ avg views per video over six months. Full case study →
- ashlele — Dress to Impress Roblox simulation. Increased upload cadence to daily without quality loss
- Swaylemc — full-movie Roblox horror, 100K+ avg views per long-form upload
- DakBlox — 0 subs to 2M+ in ~6 months (50K+ avg views per video)
- Puff, Rex, RexandAlexa, BloxWorld, HyperCookiie, Boffy — active long-form clients
How I got here
I started editing YouTube videos in 2014 — which is a generic biographical fact. The interesting one is what I learned during the years that the YouTube algorithm changed three or four times. The 2017 watch-time pivot. The 2020 shorts arrival. The 2022 audience-retention reweighting. The 2024 personalised-feed shift. Each one rewarded a different editing instinct. The editors who plateaued tied their identity to "what worked last year." The ones who stayed hireable kept measuring retention graphs and adjusting.
I'm in the second camp. The framework I use today is a refinement of editing systems I've broken and rebuilt every 18 months for over a decade. The 30-second rule isn't an opinion — it's a measurement I make on every channel before I edit a single second.
Why retention-led editing
"Retention-led editing" gets used as a marketing phrase by editors who don't actually look at retention graphs. To me it means something concrete: before any creative decision, I look at the channel's last 10 videos in YouTube Studio and identify the drop-off patterns. Where does retention break? At the 30-second hook? At the 4-minute slump? At the 7-minute wall? Then I edit specifically to defend those points.
That's why I publish a definition of the phrase instead of just using it. I'd rather work with creators who hold me to that definition than with ones who don't know what it means.
The single most useful thing I've learned in 12 years: retention is built backwards. You don't write a hook to "grab attention" abstractly — you write it specifically against the drop-off pattern of the audience that already exists on this channel. Generic hooks fail. Hooks engineered against a specific retention graph hold.
What I work on
Long-form editing
The flagship service. Full 8 to 30 minute videos built around the retention graph. Hook engineering, pacing, B-roll, sound design, color grading. $300–500 per video, 24–72h turnaround.
Hook engineering
Standalone or as an add-on. The first 15 seconds rewritten until the retention graph holds past the 30-second mark. The single highest-leverage edit on any video.
Channel audits
Before I commit to an editing engagement, I run a channel audit. Retention graphs across the last 10 videos, top-performer analysis, drop-off pattern recognition. $300 one-off.
Channel management
For creators who want the entire YouTube operation handled. Strategy, uploads, end-screens, analytics, growth benchmarking, thumbnail design. By quote, typically $3K–6K/month.
Niche specialisations
I'm strongest in Roblox, Minecraft, general gaming, lifestyle, tech and finance creators. The full niche directory is here.
Languages
English and Spanish, fluently. I was born and raised in Colombia (Bogotá) and have worked in English-language creator environments for over a decade. Briefs, revisions, Discord pings — answered in whichever language you sent them. The website, blog (~50 articles), and every landing page exist in both EN and ES.
For Spanish-speaking creators specifically, I'm a fit for creators across LATAM, Spain and the US Hispanic market. Default dialect is neutro latinoamericano; I adapt to castellano (Spain) or rioplatense (Argentina) on request.
The studio
Umbrella Creators is the studio name. I personally lead every project, but a small team of vetted editors handles overflow capacity for high-volume channels. Communication is single-point-of-contact through me, not a slack soup. Standard turnaround is 24–72 hours. Discord is the working surface for daily revisions; email handles binding decisions.
The studio is based in Bogotá, Colombia. We work with creators worldwide — primarily United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Mexico, Spain, Argentina and Colombia. Timezone overlap with US Eastern is full; with UK and Europe, half-day; with Australia, async via Discord.
What I write about
I publish long-form essays on YouTube editing, retention engineering, hiring, and case studies. Each is in English and Spanish. The pillar piece is the 22-minute complete 2026 hiring guide. The rest of the blog index is here.
Recent ones I'd point you to first:
- Best long-form YouTube editor in 2026: how to evaluate and pick
- Your YouTube channel isn't growing — and editing is probably part of why
- How Mud scaled from 30K to 100K+ views per video
- YouTube retention graph explained
- The 30-second rule: engineering YouTube hooks that hold retention
Where to find me
- Email: kevin@umbrellacreators.com — fastest reply, usually within 4 hours during Bogotá business hours
- YT Jobs: verified profile with 17 five-star reviews
- Discovery call: contact form — share your channel link and goals, I send a tailored quote within 24 hours
What I won't do
Brevity beats cleverness here:
- I don't edit shorts or TikToks. Different optimisation model.
- I don't take on more channels than I can personally lead. Capacity gates the roster.
- I don't promise virality, view counts, or specific subscriber growth. I promise retention work, and the rest follows.
- I don't ghost. If a channel isn't a fit, I tell you within 24 hours and recommend an editor I trust.