I'm a big fan of avoiding the shit out of the Chinese mystery meat stuff that you see on Amazon and eBay. Reason being, if it breaks or needs replacement parts, you're buggered. Compatibility with accessories isn't always guaranteed and the resale value is for bobbins if you ever want shot of it.
Instead, my strong recommendation is to look at brand name gear like Elinchrom or Bowens. I use Elinchrom - it's great quality, built like tanks and the modifiers are all compatible across the range. You could say the same for Bowens, though.
Either look for some older gear (250 and 400w monobloc heads can be found second hand quite widely) or check out their D-Lite One RX Softbox Kit, which is pretty much everything you need (heads, boxes, stands and trigger) for about as much as a cheap DSLR. The heads are only 100w, but that's often as much as you need for headshots and small groups, especially if you don't *have* to shoot at low ISO.
For me, the sweet spot would be a second hand One RX kit and later on, a more powerful head that you could use the same boxes on.
