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The pitch is a crucial moment for both stakeholders and entrepreneurs. It has gained popularity thanks to several television shows that dramatised it as a confrontation between financial “sharks” or “dragons” and entrepreneurs (Guimtrandy and Burger-Helmchen, 2022). In this research, we examine how student entrepreneurs mobilise rhetoric in their pitches to foster-stakeholder engagement, while highlighting the role of communication in legitimising projects still in their nascent stage, and underlining the importance of support mechanisms in shaping the entrepreneurial identity of student entrepreneurs. Through a qualitative approach based on interviews and video recordings, this study aims to develop a theoretical and structural model that provides a better understanding of the interplay between communication, engagement, and the stage of project development.