Sorry to be blunt, but you are rightly sensing futility. You've been working on something for 8 years, when the entire software industry lifecycle is only 2-3 years. So nearly every problem your company has solved was probably solved 6 years ago in open source.

I'm only saying this because I worked on a video game for 11 years. Finally got it released, at the cost of a falling out with my best friend and business partner, and we never recovered our friendship in the same way. This stuff can be brutal.

If you're a CTO in name only, then you're probably also sensing that investment in different people or tools like #nocode could have bigger returns than more code. But maybe that doesn't sound good to investors, so you keep doubling down on the current approach.

I went through a massive burnout in 2018 and lost my job in 2019. The stress combined with too much alcohol and gym time finally just burned me out. Humans aren't meant to live under continuous stress for years on end. It was like having a stroke. I lost all decision-making and problem-solving ability and could barely get out of bed for 6 months. Then the rona hit.

There's hope though, because I made a full recovery. Here's what I did, YMMV:

* https://www.depression-chat-rooms.org

* Split and subdivided my tasks to their most granular level in todo lists

* Executed the tasks at a different time or day to exercise executive function

* Tackled the low-hanging fruit instead of the hardest thing first

* Prioritized my physical needs over a job after I found the smoking gun, that gut health affects serotonin and can be sent out of whack by common foods like dairy, tree nuts like almonds, legumes and nightshades (B vitamins, digestive enzymes, kefir, psyllium husk capsules, spinach, iodine, etc, talk to a nutritionist or eastern medicine/Ayurvedic specialist)

* Dedicated myself to service (donated plasma, jumped to help others in need, vocalized that I was there for people)

* Found ADHD TikTok

* Set boundaries (most important of all?)

* Tried something completely different for awhile (handyman for another friend during the summer of 2020)
- AND/OR -
Worked on my communication skills

That last one might be hard to do, so if you can't take a break from your job, I'd recommend opening a dialog with the people around you. Being more transparent with my supervisor/boss at my current job has done wonders. It turns out that many of the people who antagonized me over the years were actually terrified that I was going to run away and leave them hanging. We're working through a tremendous amount of projection and anxiety as a society. So it might help to flip the situation from "what's wrong with me?" to "how can I help?" because the change in perspective might reveal the issues that your subconscious mind is warning you about.

In the end, it was all worth it, and I'm so much happier and more resilient now for the experience. But I can't lie, I still struggle some days with the continuous nature of it. All I think about pretty much all of the time now is how much I just want a break. But, a bigger percentage of my time now goes to my personal development goals (bought an electric car that I'm going to take full solarpunk to drive for free) so I use mantras and meditation and envisioning a better future to push through the tough mornings.

Hope something in this helps!