Keep things simple; there are rods designed for specific lures and specific water temperatures these days.

There are three basic lure presentations:
Top of the water column (topwaters/frogs)
Middle of the water column (spinner baits, crankbaits, etc)
Bottom baits (Texas rig, Carolina rig, etc)

To keep things simple, I'd get four rods.

One Medium strength moderate fast action--for finesse presentations--drop shot, light shaky head, very light/small topwaters, crankbaits, jerkbaits--I'd put a spinning reel on this rod to make casting the lures easier

One Medium Heavy strength moderate action--for treble hooked topwaters, crankbaits, jerkbaits

One Medium Heavy strength moderate fast action--for single hooked water column presentations (buzzbaits, spinner baits, flukes, senkos, chatterbaits, light Texas rig

One Heavy strength moderate fast action--for frog fishing, pitching into thick vegetation.

Lures and colors--
again, keep it simple.

Buy one topwater presentation lure--Hollow body popping frog (The Academy H20 Xpress frogs work just fine). Buy one in black, one in white, one in green

Buy one middle of the water presentation lure--3/8oz Academy H20 Xpress CRS square bills work--get one in a shad color, one black back/chartreuse belly, one in a bluegill color.

Buy a versatile lure that can be fished in the middle and bottom of the water column--5 inch YUM dingers (YUM's version of the senko). Black and blue, green pumpkin colors.

Start simple: Take one rod and one lure with you to start.
Start fishing with the most versatile lure--the YUM dingers/senkos.
Learn to fish them weightless Texas rig, then split shot, then Texas rig, drop shot, wacky rigged, then on a shaky head, then Carolina rigged, etc, etc.

Once you have confidence in one presentation, move onto the next.

Ok, you have $100 of my money to spend on tackle to get me started. I�m brand new to bass fishing but have been doing a lot of reading and YouTube watching. I�m compiling a pretty good list and you guys have been very helpful so far.

Between cranks, jerks, rips, top waters, spinners, square, round, lipless, all the softs and not to mention colors... it�s overwhelming to say the least.

So if you were starting someone out from scratch what do you tell them to get.

Be as specific as possible with brand, type, model, color, weight etc...