The purpose of the paper is to examine, in a imperfect signaling framework, the investment strategies of agents who, by deciding to compete or not, try to manipulate the beliefs of the market. We show that some heterogeneity in projects is necessary for the existence of separating equilibria. Dumb agent will always invest on the ''easy'' project whereas smart agent, when acting as follower, will always differentiate himself. These features are robust to the presence of senior agents whose type is common knowledge. We further investigate the willingness of agents to postpone their investment decision and the social optimality of their decision in the presence of reputational concerns.