If you expect to make $ you need to treat this like a business. Sure you could just throw together the best rig you can for now, start mining & wing it, but there's no this + this + this perfect strategy you can follow that will 100% work out exactly as expected. Do research, LOTS of research, like a couple hours every day for a few weeks if possible. Youtube videos make it easier but to be honest I was calling most people online idiots long before I even started mining.
If you just want to get started do that with whatever you figure out is best for you. Get a couple of cards or a used ASIC that's still profitable to mine with(I just sold my Antminer for 3 times what I paid for it 2 months ago) & get just your feet wet. There's even a post in this forum where dude is selling USB miners for $60 & I'm telling friends to get them just to get started. But if you really want to make $ mining long term a legit business plan isn't a bad idea. I store every point of data I can, save every receipt, calculate every watt, hash & cable tie to the cent... but my goals aren't everyone's.
At least make a spreadsheet to compare cards etc. & when you do get started please for the love of god don't use Windows(or do, what do I know)
Sounds like really good advice to do it this way!
Why not Windows?
There's many reasons.. It's not free/cheap, it's the 1 common factor I see with most people who have issues & IMO it's totally unnecessary. Headless rigs make the most sense to me, just like servers, you don't need a mouse or keyboard, simply SSH into PiMP, nvOC or Ubuntu, run a few commands/configs & you're done!
I walked a friend through building a rig & setting up everything using Linux in no time at all. Let me be clear though, this guy has never used a command line in his life, in fact he didn't even know what it was yet he's mining away right now kicking ass & is glad he didn't have to buy a monitor, keyboard or mouse. You can't do that with Windows.