The way I understand it, if you grow your own peppers and ferment them raw, then there should be enough lactobacilli present naturally to start a ferment.
I buy my peppers (and other produce) at the grocery store, so I can't be sure that any bacteria is present, so I use a starter. There are several alternatives you can use as a starter, I tend to use pills that you can get at the pharmacy, but you can also use the brine left over from a previous ferment, or there are a couple other possibilities too.
I also like to roast or sometimes smoke my produce before fermentation. That leaves plenty of sugars left in the produce to provide food for the lactobacilli, but roasting or smoking will kill all the lactobacilli, so you have to use a starter.
If you're able to see bubbles, then you've got fermentation, whether you used a starter or not.