I look for companies that I know are selling products among my friends/family/peers.
I also try to follow trends and look for key breakouts with high volume trades.
Found out about
http://www.sharebuilder.com on
http://www.youngmoney.com and learned that i could invest in companies of my choosing even if I didn't have enought money to buy a complete share of that company.
I decided I wanted to open a sharebuilder acount. My initial goal is to just beat my savings accounts growth (simple enought because that only accrues pennies a month). I have been able to do that and am now trying to beat my goal of a 50% annual return.